Seas of Fortune
by Astherfeld Cryomorph
Summary: After a whole week of leave, the admiral struggles on getting the fleet back up to their feet and resume normal operations, as well as preparing a little bit of something for a certain someone. Includes bits of mechanic from Kancolle Kai and World of Warships as well as a crossover with Girls' Frontline (or Guncolle if you prefer)
1. Prologue: Welcome Back

The sound of heels clicking rhythmically echoes on the road. A woman in her mid-20s walked lazily under the late-summer sunlight pouring in between the clouds moving lazily above the port. Her long-braided hair fluttered along with her long military cape as a sudden gust of salty wind blew her slim body that she slightly stumbled.

"Ugh…" the woman grunted with a sour expression. She slumped quite deeply, while holding the white officer hat on her head to prevent it from being flung away from the wind. Her rather beautiful face, decorated with dark swollen bags, her messy hair and her whole demeanor almost does not indicate that she's a proper woman, but her ample breasts that seemed like it could burst out her tightly-fit navy uniform couldn't convince anyone otherwise. Her complexion is also astonishingly beautiful that even though she had bags under her eyes, she could still strike the hearts of men and women alike. "I should've gotten some more sleep…" She grumbled. The woman finally reached a rather building that looked like an office, and after adjusting the large duffel bag hanging on her left shoulder, she reached out her hand and entered the building.

What greeted her after entering the building was a long hallway. There were doors on her right side leading to some administrative room meanwhile there were windows with regular intervals on the left. The cool wind blowing into her eyes and the gentle, warm sunlight seeping from some of the opened windows did not help ease her sleepiness, and instead she thought that this afternoon is too perfect to pass out on a nap. However, it's not like she had a free time.

 _"The Admiral had returned to the Naval District!"_ as she walked through the hall, the PA system suddenly blared and gave her a jolt as she struggled into the next hallway. Seemingly felt overworked having to open the door by herself and trying to regulate her breaths from being shocked, the woman tried to hold herself up by leaning towards her large suitcase. "I wish they'd stopped doing that already…" she mumbled to herself before letting out a sigh. The girl announcing her arrival through the loudspeaker somehow sound hasty as the familiar-sounding announcer's voice was accompanied with short breaths.

Finally arriving in the front of the room at the end of the hallway, the woman sighed again. Shrugging her worries away, she opened the door.

"Welco—"

"ADMIRAL!"

"What the—!?"

Before she could manage to enter the room, two girls around the woman's chest height sprung out of the room and tackled her down with force.

"Ow!" She fell flat on her butt with the weight of her own body and the two others'. Thankfully her duffel bag immediately fell on the floor after she was ambushed so it did not add to the weight in which her plump buttocks had to endure.

Not that the duffel bag is at all heavy.

The two girls were not ambushing her in an ill will as a matter of fact, as they hugged their fallen commander tightly as if they haven't seen her in years. They also rubbed her face against her torso violently but playfully, resulting in a ticklish sensation.

"H-hey, Fubuki, Samidare, it's rude to suddenly tackle the commander like that!"

From behind them, a woman donning a light green dougi and a characteristic short twintail called out to the two attackers.

"Can't help it! We haven't seen the Admiral for so long!" yelled the girl with the blue hair meanwhile rubbing her face onto the Admiral's stomach.

"It's just been a week!" the woman in green exclaimed back, approaching her fallen commander before trying to peel off the two girls from burdening her.

"Don't yell at them too much, Shouyuu." Said the Admiral, calmly picking up her fallen hat. Without trying to push away neither Fubuki nor Samidare, she attempted standing up, but as expected, it proves quite difficult to do so.

"Admiral…" the twintail muttered, "WHEN WILL YOU CALL ME BY MY PROPER NAME?!" and finally snapped.

"Aah…sorry, Shouryuuken."

"NOOOOO!"

Seeing her comical reaction, the people of the room laughed.

"Alright, alright, playtime is over girls. It's time for the briefing." After managing to stand up on her feet without much disrupting the two childlike girls clinging to her. "Everyone except the flagship of every Fleet, please leave the room for 5 minutes. Oh also, Akashi and Ooyodo, please stay behind."

"Understood!" the two girls let go of the Admiral and gave her a quick salute, before leaving the room with a patter.

As the two girls—Fubuki and Samidare—left the room, the Admiral picked up her duffel bag and pat the dust off her arse as she walked to her desk; her butt jiggled as she did. Now, there are eight people in the office; the Admiral, Akashi the Repair Ship, Light Cruiser Ooyodo, and the flagships of the five fleets she commands.

"Alright, let's start the roll call." The Admiral said, dropping the duffel bag with a heavy impact sound on the table. "Hammerhead fleet." She started the call without sitting down.

"Present; no issues" A woman clad in dull orange dougi replied curtly. She's the flagship of the First fleet codenamed the Hammerhead fleet; the Light Aircraft Carrier Houshou.

"Tiger Fleet?" the Admiral continued.

"…Present…no problem" This time, a woman with a priestess-like outfit responded in a slightly irritated tone. The Aviation Battleship Yamashiro, as she was usually called, would almost always seem like she was upset every time the Admiral tried to talk to her…even though sometimes she doesn't really mean to be too hard on the Admiral.

"Bramble Fleet?"

"Present and Voting! My fleet sends their regards…It is great to have you back, Admiral!" said Shouhou, the Light Aircraft Carrier excitedly. She smiled on her Shouhou's warm welcome and replied with a quick remark, saying 'good to be back' and another saying that her input would be necessary later on.

"Thresher Fleet?"

"H…here." Souryuu, the Carrier who seemingly were still upset of the Admiral playing with her name responded gingerly.

"And lastly…Mako fleet?"

"P-present! W-welcome back, Admiral!" the last fleet is led by the Heavy Cruiser Furutaka, who nervously answered the Admiral's call with butterflies in her stomach.

"Thanks everyone. I think everyone is here?" after she finished the roll call of the whole units under her command, the lady finally pulled her chair to sit down. "Ooyodo?"

"Yes ma'am." The Command Light Cruiser answered the call and handed the Admiral a clipboard filled with reports. Judging by how many papers are stuck on the clipboard, reading through it would take a while, so the Admiral decided to strike up a conversation with her subordinates in the meantime.

"So, how's everyone? I believe everybody is doing fine?" she said, flipping the first page of the report.

"Indeed, we are, Admiral," Houshou replied, bringing a cup of warm green tea to the Admiral's desk. "The destroyer children under my care had shown great progress on their skills, it would seem." She continued.

"Yes, Maya seemed to complain a lot about the training regime that miss Admiral had suggested, but I think she's just being dishonest with herself." Souryuu argued while hugging herself.

"And neither are you, Souryuu," the leader of Bramble fleet said with her arms folded, "You're actually pretty happy when the Admiral called you funny names, aren't you?"

"What!? A-absolutely not! I have a proper name you know!"

"Hmm…" Meanwhile the Admiral in question got her attention centered on the report so she couldn't hear the exact content of what the girls were saying. "Seems like there's weren't any problems when I left."

"A-admiral, please don't be lazy and read the whole report…!" Ooyodo panicked seeing her commander quickly flipping through the papers she worked hard on without even skimming through it.

"Aah, I'm sorry Ooyodo, I'll surely read the rest of the report later, but I'd like the bullet points for now; I need to check on the fleets as well; you know, just show my face around and stuff." The admiral replied as she put the report down on the table. She then turned her face towards the Repair Ship that had been peering at her repeatedly as if expecting something.

"Yes, Akashi?"

"Ma'am!" Akashi closed her legs that was slightly ajar as she was standing easy, while at the same time, she raised her right hand to give a quick salute. The admiral was about to tell her to drop the formality, but Akashi gave her report before the Admiral got the chance. "I've completed _that thing_ you asked me to make!"

"Hoo?" The admiral's eyebrow raised as she heard Akashi mentioned _that thing_ , while others in the room were…

" _That thing_?"

"That _…thing_?"

"That _thing_ …?"

"…That _thing_?"

" _What_ thing?

"Can I have it!?"

The flagships of each fleet who were present in the room tilted their heads while Akashi, still being excited, asked the question.

"Please don't make a big fuss over it, Akashi, I'm still planning on it." The Admiral exhaled shortly while smiling, supporting her chin with her arm on the desk. "Putting that aside, how's our inventory?"

"We are running rather low on most things; Bauxite and Fuel especially, but we can still run the fleet for two weeks at most." Akashi reported after looking at the small note paper she pulled out of her skirt pocket.

"Wow we're running out of things quite quicker than I imagined…" the Admiral muttered, "How are the escort fleets? Are they enjoying their holidays?"

"Absolutely. They have been enjoying their time…they said it's just a shame that the Admiral isn't around just when they finally had their holidays." Akashi replied, and the admiral only sighed in relief.

"Alright, I think that's all I need to know as of now." Said the admiral. "From now on we'll start to slowly move forward again and proceed with the missions, understood?"

""""""Yes ma'am.""""""

"All fleets are to prepare themselves and outfit for a warmup mock battle. We will commence training battle by 1600 hours, 3 hours from now." She said as she checked her watch on her left wrist. "So, until then, go grab lunch and do some warmups. I'll be checking on every single fleet later, okay?"

""""""Understood.""""""

"With that said, you're all dismissed. I'll see you guys later with the details of which fleet is to fight which." The admiral stood up and posed a salute, and in return, the seven shipgirls in the room returned her salute.

And thus, the meeting was concluded, and the five flagships exited the room.


	2. The Hammerhead Fleet

An hour after the meeting ended, the admiral walked down the hallway right outside the office to start heading to the dormitory rooms with the command ship Ooyodo. The report compiled by Ooyodo was brilliant, the Admiral thought; it allowed her to read through everything that's happening in the Naval District across the week she was absent in just under an hour. Now that she had two hours of free time, she thought of going to check on her fleets and ask them out for lunch together, if possible.

Her first stop is the Hammerhead Fleet's Dormitory. Since her office is located nearby the dormitory, it didn't take her even five minutes to reach the hallway leading to the rooms of her subordinates, and right now, she had already reached the first fleet's door.

Without further waits, she reached to the door handle and pushed it open.

"I'm coming in—mmph!"

And just as she pushed the door open, a small but rather heavy buckwheat pillow came flying towards her face in great speed.

"Wha-!? Miss Admiral?!"

A familiar voice came from inside the room, but as the pillow somehow comically stuck to her face, the Admiral can't be sure of who the voice belongs to. After five seconds that felt like forever, the pillow slid off her face and she could once more identify the shipgirls who stood frozen in the room.

As the admiral quickly scanned the room, there were five girls that she saw, including the familiar flagship the admiral saw in her office an hour prior. Three of the girls were yanking each other's clothes as well as wielding their own pillow on one of their hands, two of whose were still in their pajamas. Further away was the Flagship Light Carrier Houshou, already prepared and equipped given that she had to attend the meeting earlier. Finally, In the far back nearby the wardrobe, a tomboyish girl who was only in her underwear and her eyepatch looked towards the door with her eyes wide open.

"…Houshou-san, what's going on here?" Sighing subtly as she picked up the pillow, the Admiral asked.

"A-a-a-a-a-a-a-ADMIRAL! I'M IN THE MIDDLE OF CHANGING!" in turn, the cruiser in the corner of the room picked up a nearby pillow and once more covered the Admiral's face with pillow.

"UMPH…really!?" yelled the Admiral in return as she received the pillow in her face. "It's okay, Murasa, we're both girls." She said peeling the pillow off angrily. The cool and composed-looking cruiser blushed from ear to ear while trying to cover her chest and crotch area with her pajama she just took off.

"I'm Kiso!"

"Okay, okay…" The admiral replied lazily while rubbing her cheeks that turned red from getting hit by the pillow. She then turned her face towards the flagship of the fleet as if asking again.

"W…well…some of us woke up very late and they were about to change their outfits," Houshou paused and peered at the three girls who now panicked as they let go of their comrades' collar. "But…somehow it escalates to this…pillow fight" Hearing the report, the Admiral furrowed her brow and pinched her nose bridge. She entered the room along with Ooyodo who closed the door and pat the Admiral on the shoulder.

"Girls, it's 1 in the afternoon…" she said, "There's a limit of being lazy, you know."

"Y…yes." The destroyer Fubuki, apologized.

"I don't mind you have fun, but be punctual, okay? And don't greet people with pillow on their face."

"Yes…"

The three girls who did a pillow fight lined up in front of the Admiral with their gazes cast down. One of them is Fubuki, one of the two destroyers that pummeled down the Admiral earlier in her office just as she entered the room. She was one of the three girls who was involved in the pillow fight but not in her pajamas. The girl next to her is the destroyer Murasame, which was pouting as she gripped her pillow with both hands. Despite still being in her pajamas, she already tied up her signature twintails, so the Admiral thought that she might have already planned to dress up before the desire to hit each other with pillows overcame her.

Last on the line was,

"…Ise, I thought you're the mature one around here…" the admiral called out the one sticking out among the line. The tall girl is the Battleship Ise. As she stood straight as she received the Admiral's reprimanding, her height almost reached the Admiral's height.

"Ehehe, sorry Admiral," she apologized "But there's always that time when you just wanted to act like a child, right?"

"Well…can't say I don't agree with you…" the admiral hesitated for a minute, "But Houshou-san _did_ tell you to get ready, right?"

"Yes, she did…" Ise once more cast her gaze down to the ground apologetically, but seeing her like this, the Admiral felt a slight pang on her chest.

"…Ah what am I talking about." The admiral breathed a sigh of relief before smiling. "At least I see that you're all doing just fine, which is nice." The admiral reached out her glove-covered hand and patted the Battleship girl's head. The admiral's conscience felt guilty seeing her lovely subordinates sad face as she reprimanded them, and so she thought it's about time to stop. Ise narrowed her eyes in pleasure from the admiral's pets as she nearly purred instinctively.

"Admiral, me too!"

"Don't forget about me!"

"Waah, alright, alright, there there, sorry if I yelled at you too much."

The admiral removed her hand from Ise's head and put her both hands on Murasame and Fubuki's head respectively. The figure of two girls humming in enjoyment as she rubbed their heads reflects an image of a pair of dogs, the admiral thought, but she loved her life too much to say it out front.

Speaking of which, the rest of the shipgirls who didn't manage to get her attention puffed their cheeks with irritation.

"By the way, why is there only five of you here…" said the admiral checking around the room once more. "Houshou-san, Murasame, Fubuki, Ise, and Kiso…where's Haguro?"

"Haguro is…"

Just before Houshou managed to answer her admiral's question, the floor shook. It sounded like someone is rushing towards the door from outside, and the Admiral was about to step aside from the doorway to allow whoever it is to open the door,

But it was too late.

 ** _BLAM_**

"BLEUGH!?"

"IS THE ADMIRAL HERE YET?!" A woman slightly shorter than the Admiral came storming into the room, opening the door with enormous force that she didn't realize that there was something behind it. Her short shoulder-length hair was disheveled, much like her purple-colored uniform, her bare arms and her face was wet with beads of water sticking to it, and her breathing was rough; she must have been in a hurry, but the question is for what.

"Haaa, thank god the admiral is not here yet…I wouldn't want her to see me like this." The girl heaved a heavy sigh of relief as she wiped her forehead with the back of her wet hand.

Contrary to her relief, the resident of the Hammerhead Fleet dormitory room froze for the second time of the day. Though this time, the shock drained blood off their faces and stopped their breaths. The fleet didn't even pay attention to what the girl said, but rather, towards the area behind the door.

"Hm? What's going on, everyone?" Despite being an airhead, Haguro noticed the weird reactions of her comrades. Sure, they might be shocked about her sudden entrance, but it should not be _that_ extreme.

At that point, Haguro caught on. Her breath got caught in her throat audibly, and just like others, her face paled. Then, with a slow and stiff movement like an old, unoiled clockwork toy, Haguro turned her face towards the back of the door.

The Admiral died.

"HIEEEEEEEEEEE!?"

—or so Haguro thought. It was almost natural though; her commander collapsed right behind the door lifelessly with her forehead blazing red. Judging by how the impact looked and how loud it sounds, it was a miracle that the Admiral didn't break her nose, much less bleed.

"Nnngghh…" the admiral groaned after managing to recollect her consciousness, and as she did, her forehead started to sting. "Thankfully I lowered my face so it only hurt my forehead…", the admiral thought.

"HIEE ADMIRAL! I'M SORRY!"

Haguro panicked uncontrollably; beads of sweat appeared on her face and tears started forming on the corner of her eyes. Her already-disheveled hair got even messier as she turned her face around aimlessly, trying to figure out what to do.

Without any other words, the admiral attempted to stand up. She held her forehead that stings severely with both hands and tears on the corner of her eyes. Unfortunately to the admiral, the whole fleet forgot to come up to her to ask if she's ok and instead, they looked at the admiral with wide eyes, quicker breathing, and flushed faces. Somewhere in the corner of their eyes, they thanked Haguro for the "feast".

It's not like they were liked looking at the Admiral being in pain, nor that they are all secretly a sadist; it just somehow excites them to see a different face of the Admiral other than the normal, strict, stoic-faced commander of theirs.


	3. The Tiger Fleet

After five minutes, the admiral recovered from the pain, and as she did, the girls of the Hammerhead fleet finished their preparations. Fubuki and Murasame, as well as Kiso donned their uniforms that looked like high school girls' sailor uniform, Ise was clad on her usual Kimono, meanwhile Haguro tidied up her complexion, brushed her hair and tidied her purple uniform, finally dried herself and put on her elbow gloves.

The fleet walked slowly behind their commander, some their metallic heels clinked loudly on the wooden floor of the hallway as they trudged to the second fleet's room.

Speaking of which, the admiral herself were pressing a bag of ice to her forehead. After the incident with Haguro, Houshou rushed out of the dormitory room and quickly retrieved a package of ice from god-knows-where and took care of the admiral wholeheartedly.

"Mom sure is amazing!" Fubuki remarked jokingly, but seeing Houshou's motherly figure, the others can't take that as a joke and agreed with Fubuki in with amazement. Even the admiral who was down on one of the bunk bed agreed with the fleet members with an added remark saying "you would be a great wife one day" which results in Houshou being flustered and the other ships squinting their eyes in clear jealousy.

The admiral walked in front of the fleet with Ooyodo on her right and Houshou on her left as they arrived at the front of the second fleet's dormitory room. Learning her past mistake, the admiral gingerly knocked on the door, silently hoping that the second fleet is already up and ready to go so she there won't be any complications.

But as she did,

"SCREW OFF! DON'T COME BACK HERE, OLD HAG!" A blasting voice came from inside the room. Hearing the roar, the admiral got her breath stuck on her throat for a while, and soon after, she sighed. It seemed like there will _still_ be complications.

"…I guess the Bramble's children had too much time on their hands…" the admiral muttered. She turned her head from side to side as if looking for something, and it looked like she found what she's looking for. "Ashigara, come over here."

"Hyi!?"

The shriek did not come from anyone in the first fleet's group, but it belongs to the mature-looking woman standing in the corner of the hallway, just several meters ahead from the second fleet's dorm room. After hearing the call from her commander, the woman that looked like she was in the middle of her 20s approached the Admiral gingerly. "Hahaa, the admiral is sharp as always", She remarked

"N-nee-sama, what happened?" asked Haguro. Both Haguro and Ashigara wore the same outfit, indicating that they are both belonging to the same ship class.

"I was playing around with the Bramble fleet, but somehow Maya got angry and started calling me names", said Ashigara with a pout on her face. "You too should say something to her, miss Admiral!"

"Oh you bet I will." The admiral turned her face back to the second fleet's room and rolled her sleeves up, revealing her pale white forearm, before muttering in a silent rage, " _Nobody calls me an old hag_."

As she said that, the 8 shipgirls around the Admiral widened their eyes and held their breaths. The admiral knocked the door once again, only to be replied with another shout.

"GO BACK TO YOUR OWN ROOM!"

But the admiral didn't concur. She kept knocking the door again and again until the girl inside grew tired of shouting and decided to deliver her words to the one who kept knocking directly to her face.

"I TOLD YOU TO FU—kh?!"

"Hm."

The shipgirl who popped out of the room with fury in her face had a short hair and antennae-like hair decoration as well as a small green beret. Her sufficiently abundant chest was covered by light green sailor uniform-like short dress that exposed her slim enticing abdomen. Her face that was flushed red with anger turned to red of embarrassment and a mix of fear, her face was almost as if saying "I've made a huge mistake".

"Maya." The admiral said that right in front of Maya with her arms folded and voice cold as ice.

"…P-Present." Just like Haguro several minutes ago, Maya was shocked as her face paled. Her high-pitched tone dropped and she replied in a slight stutter.

"Remind me of what you said when I first knocked on your door." The admiral continued, looking down at Maya who was about 10 centimeters shorter than her.

"W…what is it indeed." Maya somehow decided to play dumb and turned away while smiling wryly.

"Ooyodo."

"Y-yes, she called you…an old hag."

"I see." The admiral smiled so radiantly that if people do not know of the context, they will see an angel smiling down upon the Heavy Cruiser girl.

But for Maya, it was like she was looked down upon by someone trigger-happy with a scythe. Maya closed her eyes, bracing herself as she thought the admiral would hit her.

"…eh?"

But the Admiral slowly moved her arms and gently enveloped both sides of Maya's cheeks with her palm. She exerted enough force to lift Maya's face to look at her in the eyes without being too rough, and as she finished, the admiral called out to the shipgirl with gentle voice, unlike the voice she used literally 5 seconds ago.

"Maya…" the admiral said softly with a tender voice,

Before her hands grabbed Maya by the cheek and pulled them apart "Which mouth was it that called me a hag, huh? I'm. Still. 25. Years. Old."

"Ueeeee I'm sowwy!"

The admiral quickly released Maya's cheeks and put her hand on her hip with a look of disappointment. She had noticed how people around her mistook her for being older than she is due to her rather mature behavior and her towering height for a girl, and she didn't really pay it any mind personally because she took as a blessing to be called mature, but to be called a _hag_ in her prime age is simply not okay.

"Now explain what was going on." The Admiral commanded. "I heard you had a fight with Ashigara?"

"Yes…" Maya pouted. "I mean I was sleeping and she kept poking my ear with a quill, of course I'll be mad!"

 _What are you, twelve?_ The Admiral thought silently as she peered over to Ashigara who stood by her side, looking like she refused to believe what Maya just spoke about.

"…and Ashigara, what do you have to say?"

"I would just like to inform you that it is completely not true." With the same manner, Ashigara replied stiffly, and,

 _Yeap, it_ is _true_ , thought the rest of the crew in the hallway.

The admiral sighed, looking like she was plenty disappointed, but the admiral felt that their reunion should not be ruined by mere child's play, therefore she decided to shrug it off.

"Ashigara, return to your dorm room, I'll talk to you later. I'm going to go check up on this fleet and proceed to yours soon." The admiral ruffled Ashigara's hair before gently pushing her away. Ashigara timidly held her head after the admiral's rough affection and puffed her cheeks. She ended up reluctantly nodding and walked off. Meanwhile, looking at Ashigara lazily walking away from her, Maya stuck out her tongue.

"Ow!" In response to her behavior, Maya received a light chop on her head.

"So? Are you going to let me in?"

"F-fine…!" almost as if she's puffing in what seemed to be fake anger, Maya attempted to show that she was reluctant in letting the admiral in.

Maybe because it was slightly later than when the Admiral visited the Hammerhead fleet, the members of the Bramble fleet was more-or-less ready. Three of the shipgirls inside were idling around waiting for the admiral to come and see them. Two of them was sitting down on their bunk beds chatting with each other, while the remaining two who aren't ready quite yet were seemingly still perfecting their already-perfect looks. Their flagship Yamashiro who she saw earlier in her office was also present, sitting in a seiza calmly as if waiting for orders. Barely anybody notices it, but she very subtly smiled as the Admiral walked in and showed her face.

"Ah, Miss Admiral," the girl with a blazing pink hair tied to a cute ponytail greeted the admiral as she swung her legs on the upper part of the bunk bed. She wore a lime-green, slightly baggy hoodie on top of her nearly-hidden Japanese school swimsuit and sailor uniform and it almost looked like she wasn't wearing anything underneath that hoodie.

"Welcome back Admiral!" after the submarine girl, another girl clad in frilly orange dress appeared from behind one of the wardrobes, excitedly greeting the admiral. Seeing how her signature buns were tidily put up and her usual radiant excitement fills the room, the admiral's lips naturally curled up.

"Oh, Iroha and Naka, good afternoon." The admiral greeted back the light cruiser casually, while responding to the submarine shipgirl without calling her name as it was intended. Her name was supposed to be pronounced as Imuya by some, but the admiral preferred the name Iroha (From _I_ chi (1), _Ro_ ku (6), and _Ha_ chi (8) of her ship number). The submarine girl herself didn't seem to mind as she jumped down the bunk bed, her bright hair swaying like rose petals blown by the wind. "I see that everyone's almost ready."

"Indeed, we are ready," said the destroyer Isokaze who were just done combing her long, black hair. Her complexion and her cool stoic tone would usually lead to people thinking that she acts more like a knight, but for the Admiral, she looked like a proper Yamato Nadeshiko.

"Well, nice to see you girls again," the admiral said, "how are you doing, Hamakaze?"

"Umm! Mmm!" As the admiral asked the bob-cut silver-haired destroyer, she only managed to reply with a mumble as she was holding onto her bright yellow scarf on her mouth meanwhile buttoning up her white sailor uniform matching that of Isokaze's. As if wanting to greet the admiral back and tell her that she's doing well, she jumped lightly in place; her ash-blue pleated skirt fluttered and showed her bountiful stocking-covered thighs.

"You can continue dressing up, Hamakaze, don't mind me." The admiral tipped her hat slightly with the intention to greet Hamakaze back. "I believe Yamashiro have told you, but we'll meet up in the dining hall soon to discuss the agenda for the warmup training. I think if you girls are ready you can go with us; I have the first fleet ready behind me."

"Naka-chan agrees~!" exclaimed the light cruiser with enthusiasm, somehow addressing herself in third person.

"I-I guess that'll be a good idea." Maya responded in her pseudo-tsundere-like tone again before turning her face away with an adorable pout.

"Haa…I just hope I don't have to face Fusou-nee-sama…" meanwhile their flagship still smiled despite sounding like she was complaining about her commander's decision and stood up from the tatami mats elegantly.


	4. The Bramble Fleet

_Author's Note: It became a tad serious before I know it_

* * *

Without further ado, the admiral moved on to the next fleet's dormitory room, followed by the first two fleets. The members gave their greetings nonchalantly and chattered amongst each other as they walked briskly on the hallways. Given their number, the admiral started to think if it was the wrong choice to bring them along to the other dorm rooms as well.

"Ooyodo, one moment?"

"Yes, Commander?" the light cruiser responded, swiping her hair behind her ear.

"After I visit the Bramble fleet, can you tell the girls to head to the mess hall first?" She said without slowing down her pace. "I think the hall will be too packed if we are to bring five whole fleets and moving together."

"Understood, shall I accompany them to the mess hall as well?"

"No, I want you with me."

"…! I-I suppose."

Hearing the admiral's answer, Ooyodo's face heated up and slightly fogged her glasses.

The rooms were simply next to each other's, but due to the size of the room along with its built-in storage areas, they need to walk for quite a distance. After turning another corner, the plate with the fleet's name in front of the door came into sight, along with the wavy-haired woman she saw earlier.

"Ashigara?" the admiral asked just as Ashigara, who was leaning on the doorsill, noticed her and the other shipgirls approaching the dorm room.

"Oh, miss Admiral! I've been waiting for you!" Ashigara greeted and moved closer to the admiral excitedly. The cruiser Maya from the second fleet, probably still angry at Ashigara for what she did earlier in the day, hissed at the incoming Ashigara, and the Admiral reprimanded her saying "No hissing."

"Why are you waiting for me, Ashigara?"

"So that I can do this!"

With that, Ashigara circled the admiral while holding onto her arms and stuck herself close.

"W-what are you doing, Ashigara!?" The first one to exclaim was Maya. She immediately hurried to the admiral and attempted peeling Ashigara off her commander. As expected in turn, Ashigara pouted while resisting Maya's struggles

"What, I'm just having a little skinship with miss Admiral, why should you make a big fuss about it?" Ashigara said lazily, leaning her mature body over towards the admiral. The admiral was strong enough to withstand her weight (though she prefers not to disclose it directly for reasons of her safety and future), but it still bothered her quite a bit.

"Sorry Ashigara, I can't walk properly with you clinging on to me." She said, gently shrugging off the cruiser girl's embrace. Maya as well as some other shipgirls almost responded with a scoff.

"Ashigara-san, let's play again next time!" 168, or Iroha raised her arms, greeting the woman who was releasing her commander's arm halfheartedly. As Ashigara stated, she was playing around with the Tiger fleet before Maya drove her out for being too annoying; everybody except Maya welcomed Ashigara socializing to their dormitory rooms, it is just that Maya was so upset at her that she drove her out.

"Is everyone in there?" the admiral asked Ashigara just so she knows what to expect inside the room and not walk into more flying pillows and doors. Ashigara nodded before replying.

"They were ready for a while, you know. They couldn't sleep last night because they were so excited to know you'd be coming back." Said Ashigara almost in a teasing manner, but contrary to that, the admiral rather felt happy that the girls were happily expecting her arrival.

"At least try to sleep so that you have the energy to do something today." Almost as if impatient, the admiral excitedly went for the door and entered the Bramble Fleet's dormitory room.

"""""Welcome back (Miss) Admiral."""""

The five remaining ships of the Bramble fleet lined up and elegantly bowed in front of the admiral who was half-flabbergasted. She was expecting the girls to be excited of her arrivals but she did not expect to be greeted with five maid-like women welcoming their master home.

"S-Shouhou! What gives?!" the admiral yelled to the flagship of the fleet with embarrassment, attempting to hide her half-reddened face. It was clear to the girls that their commander was not used to such extent of formality, but the girls kept doing it anyways.

"We were restless in awaiting your arrival so we kind of decided to do this!"

"How would that make any sense!?" the admiral retorted in agitation, her hat nearly fell off. Shouhou and her subordinates lifted their heads and gazes upon the admiral with beaming smiles like they are waiting in line for the signature of their favorite person. Soon afterwards, in order to ease her embarrassment, the admiral decided to do a quick inspection.

"Good afternoon Kako, you forgot to tie your scarf, by the way." Said the admiral towards the tomboyish Heavy Cruiser girl next to Shouhou.

"Ah, thank you Admiral!" Kako replied and hastily rearranged her scarf atop of her sailor school uniform. Thanks to Kako's mistake though, the admiral noticed that the rest of the fleet's outfits and looks except Shouhou's were…disheveled.

Kako, as the Admiral pointed out, forgot to tie her red scarf for her sailor uniform. The destroyer Ushio right beside Kako forgot the ribbon she usually wore to secure her hair and forgot to zip up the dark blue pleated skirt, slightly revealing the light pink-colored underwear underneath. Mogami's hair was riddled with bed hair and she forgot to wear her belt that resulted in her shorts sagging down. The last girl in the fleet Hyuuga, thankfully, didn't forget anything. The admiral found a similar pattern in the girls, however, it's that behind the girls' radiant smiles, they all also have bags under their eyes.

"I heard it from Ashigara but did none of you had any sleep last night?" the admiral asked, putting her hand on her hips again. "Be honest with me, is that true?"

"Y…yes," answered Ushio, "But we were honestly very excited to see you, we could not stay still and ended up chatting all night long." she continued, slightly anxious if the Admiral would be angry at them.

"Well…I'm glad to hear that you're all excited, but at this rate this will hinder the whole fleet's performance." The admiral herself seemed extremely troubled when she said this, because obviously she does still want them to participate in several fleet activities. However, at this rate, if the Bramble fleet is to go to a practice fights, they'll be taken down quickly…and needless to say if they went into missions they'll be obliterated.

The concerned admiral grunted subtly as she rubbed the back of her head. The correct decision is to lay off the Bramble fleet from participating in missions or trainings for the day until they have enough rest to focus, but the five girls lined up in front of her hanging their heads in dejection, halted the words from coming out of her throat.

But she must do it. She believed that the fleet would abide by her command and they should understand the consequence of their action (or rather, inaction), all she need to do is to say the word.

The admiral sighed, "You girls know it's hard for me to say this," she said, "but I must exempt you girls off of today's agenda."

"B-but miss admiral…!"

"Shouhou," The admiral responded, cutting Shouhou's words in the middle. "Please understand; I do not the enemy to have a great time _Turkey Shooting_." She continued sternly. The admiral did not really mean to yell at the girls, but at this point, everybody in the room had been overcame with gloom.

"…I am your commanding officer; it is of my responsibility to ensure your survival, and I'd do anything to make sure of that." She asserted, hanging her head as well. "Dead men cannot fight, so if you want to continue fighting, please understand."

"But admiral, we're still combat ready nevertheless! Please let us at least attend the fleet exercise!"

"That's right Admiral! We can't be left behind while other fleets are doing their best!" Even so, Mogami and Ushio refused to back down and pressed the admiral. This time, however, it was not the admiral who stopped her.

"Cease it, you two; do not argue against the upper ranks. Any further argument will not do any of us good." The aloof, stoic battleship stepped forward and reached for her comrades' shoulders. "I understand that everyone here wanted to fight, but as the admiral said, at this state we are merely a burden to the whole navy. Resting is the only way to be useful at this moment."

The admiral noticed Hyuuga tightening her grip on her teammates' shoulders. The two cruiser girls can only grit their teeth in frustration.

"…However, miss Admiral, if I may be so impolite to ask you a question," Hyuuga turned her near-expressionless face towards the admiral. She usually looked stern, and she still do, but somewhere in her eyes, the admiral felt there was a speck of pain and longing for an answer.

 _"What are we fighting for?"_

As Hyuuga asked, the whole room felt like it just froze. The admiral had considered that the soldier-like Hyuuga, who would follow orders without questioning it, would sometimes have an existential crisis, constantly questioning the reasons for the shipgirls to be in the frontline, risking their life to fight faceless enemies without knowing or questioning why. Now was the chance that Hyuuga got to ask the question, and the weight of that very sentence pressed down on the whole ranks.

"I…don't know what you should fight for, and for the most part, as much as I need you to follow my directions, I have no obligation to tell you what you should fight for." The admiral spoke with her head still lowered. It felt like she still wanted to say more, but Hyuuga spoke back to her in a cold, distant tone.

"Yes, you do, miss admiral. We are, in a fundamental level, merely weapons that you have on your disposal to fulfill our motherland's needs. Some might even argue that our very existence is merely to fulfill your command." She squinted her eyes and pressed on her admiral for answers. She took two-three paces towards the admiral and once more posed her question. "If I may, miss admiral…what is our purpose?"

However, the admiral lifted her face like the gravity of the situation didn't bother her at all.

"Weapons?" she asked, peering deep into Hyuuga's topaz-colored eyes. She then examined the girls in the room, even Ashigara who had been leaning her back towards the doorsill, observing the whole conversation silently. "I have never thought of you guys as such,"

"But—"

"—and before you argue that I _should_ , I know that more than you do. Lots of other admirals thought of their shipgirls as their tools and some have told me so, questioning me why I would give the transport fleet and its escort vacations meanwhile it strains our economy at times." After saying such, the admiral turned her eyes back to Hyuuga. "But the answer is simple; I merely can't."

The shipgirls lifted their faces and gazed upon their commander in slight disbelief.

"You girls…I always see you and mentioned you as "girls", that's because despite you being fundamentally a weapon, you are also a woman with a heart. You all have individually unique personality, you make countless expressions, you laugh when you're happy, cry when you're sad, and even complain when you don't like something." The admiral folded her arms. "That's why I can't see you girls as other than humans. Because of that, I wanted to give you your human rights, make sure you all are living a fulfilling life in this world where death is at your doorstep at any time."

The fleet listened silently, and the first two fleets who became curious of what took the admiral so long to invite the Bramble fleet to lunch peeked into the door, almost jam-packing it.

"So there you have it. As for the reason to fight, you guys might have different ideas about it. Everything but the idea of world domination may be correct, but as for _my_ reason of fighting…let's see…" the admiral pondered for a slight bit, putting her hands into her skirt pocket. "I guess, it's to secure a fulfilling future with you girls."

The admiral showed a weird yet confident looking smile as put her hand with a _plop_ onto Hyuuga's head who were still standing in front of her, this time with widened eyes.

"You've asked this question countless times, but what's your idea, Hyuuga?" still smiling with confidence, the admiral leveled her face with Hyuuga who was slightly shorter than her and asked.

"…Well, it can't be helped," Hyuuga smiled and sighed while her admiral is mere centimeters away from her face. "Then I suppose I shall put my best effort to fight for this foolish admiral of mine."

"Well said." The admiral rubbed the battleship's sleek hair and distanced herself again after being satisfied in beholding Hyuuga's rare smile. She looked around the room one more time and saw determined looks in the Bramble fleet's faces. _That's the face I'd like to see_ , the admiral thought.

"Your orders, my admiral?" Having her resolve after listening to Hyuuga and her admiral's conversation, the flagship Shouhou stepped up next to the admiral.

Determination itself do not remove eye bags, therefore, with the strongest voice she can muster, the admiral relays her order;

"The Bramble Fleet is to join the rest of the navy and rendezvous at the mess hall. After that, they are to prepare themselves and head for the Broadcast Room to oversee the other fleets' mock battle. That is all."

""""""Understood!""""""

* * *

Meanwhile outside the door, the members of the other fleets were chattering quietly.

"Speaking of which, Hyuuga also had bags under her eyes, didn't she?"

"Maybe she also got too excited that she can't sleep."

"Hyuuga-san might look stiff, but she had a cute side too, didn't she?"

"Agreed."


	5. The Thresher Fleet

As the admiral instructed Ooyodo, she told the first two fleets to go to the cafeteria ahead of them to avoid jam-packing the hallway with people who doesn't even need to go to the next fleet's room. Once more, the admiral walked through the silent hallway by Ooyodo alone.

Their next destination is the Thresher fleet, sometimes named _the transfer students' fleet_. It was nicknamed that for a good reason though.

The admiral thought that because of how serious the members of the fleet are, they should be up and ready for orders at this moment, so the admiral put her hand on the door handle and opened it briskly.

"Miss Soy Sauce, I'm coming in."

"IT'S SHOURYUU!" the familiar angry voice responded from behind the thick wooden door, and hearing such response, the admiral pushed the door open.

"Ah, miss _Komandir_ , you have done well reaching this far." A voice rather heavy to belong to a woman greeted the admiral. She was a rather foreign-looking girl standing with her arms folded and legs spread wide, glaring at her direction with blazing excitement in her rust-colored eyes. Despite being the admiral's unit, she also wore a cape, though of different style, over her shoulders on top of her blood red undershirt that looked like it just came out of the dryer and wasn't ironed. She also wore a cap almost matching the admiral's, only black-colored. Her alluring silver hair that was draped on her shoulder waved as the air flowed through the door the admiral opened. She acted like the last boss of conventional RPGs as she stood menacingly in the middle of the room, but with the composure of a proper commander, the admiral shut her down swiftly.

"I know you're excited, but don't act too high and mighty, Diva." The admiral said with a subtle sigh and a smile.

"Wha—?! D-D-do not call me with such cute name! My name is Gangut Dva, the proud battleship of Mother Russia! You better remember it well!" her composure melted as she breaks off character and fumed in embarrassment.

"Hm? What's wrong with calling a cute woman like you with cute names?" the admiral asked back to Gangut with unbelievably serious face, as if she is really oblivious as a brick.

" _I-Idiot_! Do not call me cute!" getting even more flustered, the battleship girl broke out her Russian accent.

"At this point I'm wondering why the admiral isn't born a man…" from the side, a small, yet armored girl spoke from the lower part of the bunk bed. "Good afternoon, Admiral. Welcome back." Looking up from her sitting position, she squinted her eyes and smiled gently towards her commander.

"Ah, Taihou, good afternoon." The admiral greeted back. "What do you mean though? As you can see, I'm a proper woman!" said the admiral, this time proudly puffing her unnecessarily abundant breasts which irked the whole fleet, especially the armored girl who is almost severely lacking in such department.

"Miss admiral! Welcome back!"

"Ooh, I'm back, Yuu. Have you been a good girl?"

"Ja!"

"I see, that's nice."

Approaching the admiral with a patter is yet another foreign-looking girl about slightly taller than half of the admiral's height. She was wearing a black one-piece dress along with matching tight leggings, as well as grey, long shrug that looks almost like a piece of light armor.

The admiral rubbed the little submarine's head affectionately like she would do to her own little sister, and U-511, or simply Yuu also seemed like she enjoyed the sensation.

"Speaking of which, where's the other two?" asked the admiral while not stopping the activity of her hand.

"…Ah, the little one and the Japanese?" asked Gangut after repositioning her cap somewhere from the side the admiral heard Souryuu softly muttering _but I'm a Japanese too_ … "They went out to do something…Но они не сказали вождю."

"Мисс Гангут, Твой язык." As if out of nowhere, a girl with silver-blue hair appeared right behind the Admiral.

She was the shortest member of the fleet, covering her silver-colored hair partially with a white cap matching her Japanese sailor school uniform. Her eyes looked lazy, but somehow the admiral can feel the excitement behind her expression.

"Veriny, good afternoon." The admiral greeted, "Where have you been?"

"Oh we have been making a call, miss admiral," In response to the admiral's question, Veriny was about to answer but the battleship girl behind her cut her to it. "We were talking with Inazuma from Admiral Yuuji's fleet!" The battleship girl Fusou continued excitedly as she jumped lightly. Her ample chest as well as her big hair accessory bounced at the same time, leaving the Admiral wondering how they could bounce in sync.

"Oh, that Yuuji, how is he doing?" hearing the familiar name, the admiral's ears perked up. He was one of the admiral's close friends since her childhood. The girls of her fleet always saw that Admiral Yuuji sometimes would try to make a move on their admiral which sort of pissed them off, but their admiral seemingly would always brush him off and take it as a… "friendly" behavior, thus branding admiral Yuuji as her… "bestest friend".

As a result,

"Inazuma said that admiral Yuuji finally married her!"

"He what now?!"

He chose to marry one of his shipgirls instead.

""""OOOOOHHHH!""""

"Damn, he could've told me first! What's wrong with him?" the admiral exclaimed amidst the shipgirls' cheer. "And why are you girls…oh, you were cheering for Inazuma over there, huh? I'd cheer for Yuuji myself but I'm not that kind." Obviously, the girls was also happy for her friend's marriage, but the reason for their cheering is not simply that.

Obviously, it was because there will be no one being the closest to the admiral, and there will be no other high-ranking official who will make a pass on their precious admiral. _The pest is finally out of the way!_ Their eyes seemed to say, but the admiral, still oblivious as a brick, failed to take notice.

"Eehh…, Inazuma told me over the phone that Admiral Yuuji used to like someone but he got friendzoned so much that he turned to Inazuma for advices." Veriny spoke with a soft voice.

"Eh? If that's the case doesn't that mean Inazuma was just a replacement for him? A-and Yuuji actually got someone he liked? He should've told me about that!"

"It's not like that, miss Admiral," responded Fuso, putting her hand on her cheek. "It seemed like he gave up on _that person_ and realized that Inazuma-chan had been supporting him so much that it made him fell for her."

"Aww, that's kinda sweet." As expected, despite her manly demeanor, a small feminine part of the admiral is capable of appreciating a blooming romance whilst attempting to keep her calm usual conduct. The admiral folded her arms and rested her chin on her hand. "I'm still going to skin him for not letting me know though."

"Speaking of which, miss Admiral," called Fusou, "isn't it about time you get married as well?"

The admiral made a yelp that is questionably human. "W-why are you talking about me now…?" the feminine heart of the Admiral kicks in further; her face was immediately flushed red and she lost her composure as she hollered.

"That's right, Admiral. We're all also in our prime age (level), so you can marry any one of us." Taihou said, squinting her eyes and smiling devilishly, as if it was a mix of an affectionate suggestion and a suggestive tease.

"I-I'm not really interested or anything, okay?" Gangut who was behind the admiral turned her face away, saying that she wasn't interested meanwhile her flustered face looked like she is expecting something.

"I'm…I'm not planning to—"

"Oh, and before miss Admiral denies it, Inazuma already told me that she heard from Admiral Yuuji that Admiral Ayumi, that is, miss Admiral, is currently "preparing for it", and by "it", I mean it's definitely marriage."

"YUUJIIIIII!" The admiral's face turned into that of a person that might send a celebratory gift of a whole container full of cannon shells with a topping of a C4 set to explode on arrival to Admiral Yuuji's naval base.

"I'm not even interested, okay!" Gangut yelled again.

"Ad…Admiral…a-are you going to get married…?" Yuu timidly approached the admiral from the side and tugged her sleeve with upturned eyes. Facing the cute monster that is Yuu, the admiral cannot change the topic no matter what she does.

"W-well…It's certainly been…on my mind…" still trying to hide her embarrassed expression, the admiral gingerly replied. "E…even I can be embarrassed too s-so…please, just leave it at that…"

 _KYU_

In an instant, the girls' faces almost seem like it was spewing steam.

"W-well…that certainly is such a rare sight…" commented Souryuu. Her face was, without exception, blushing after beholding such sight. Just like the previous fleet, seeing the Admiral being flustered, embarrassed, or even slightly vulnerable is a very rare sight, and the girls just can't help but to admire it.

"A-anyways, this subject is over! We're not going to talk about it anymore!" then, as if a child throwing a hissy fit, the admiral turned away and folded her arms with a short snort. "We're going to go to lunch and prepare for the spar's briefing; you heard that from Souryuu, right?"

"Eh? We haven't heard anything about it…" Taihou replied with a blank expression.

"Right, someone's eating rice and soy sauce for lunch."

"NOOOOOOOOO!"

The admiral left the room whilst beckoning the girls to follow suit. The entirety of the Thresher fleet exited the room briskly, accompanied by the apologetic bellowing of a certain carrier girl.

After exiting the room, the admiral was about to tell the Thresher fleet to go ahead to the mess hall before her as she was about to visit the Mako fleet's room, but then Houshou came from the opposite direction of the hall.

"Miss admiral, miss admiral!" she said with ragged breath. "Thank goodness I can find you."

"H…Houshou-san? What happened?" still feeling jittery from the previous topic, the admiral replied to the light carrier that just arrived.

Trying to ease her breath, Houshou put her hand on her chest and took some deep breaths, before finally reporting to her commander; "That is…um…you have some guests waiting for you."

* * *

 _Author's Note: It's going to be a crossover from here on out.  
_


	6. The Mako Fleet?

_Author's Note: I did say it'll be a crossover from this point, but it's just a little hint for now._

* * *

Following the Houshou's direction, the admiral proceeded back to the starting point; her office. That's where she would send her guests to, and being the personal secretary of her commander, Houshou understood so and sent the guests to wait at the admiral's office. As her replacement, she told Ooyodo to send the Thresher fleet to the mess hall, so at the moment, the Admiral was walking towards the office only with Houshou. As a side note, she also told Ooyodo to check up on the Mako fleet and tell them to head towards the mess hall and that she'll meet them there.

"Who are they, Houshou-san?" the Admiral asked from two-three steps behind the Hammerhead fleet's flagship, but without slowing down her pace, the light carrier woman glanced over her shoulders and said,

"I'm…not sure, miss admiral. There are two beautiful young women holding a suitcase just about thiiis big?" Said Houshou while showing an example size the span of slightly wider than her shoulders.

"Hmm…" the admiral grunted. "I was expecting a delivery, but I certainly did not expect guests." The admiral continued walking two-three steps behind Houshou with light steps. Without long, they arrived back to the front of the office when they heard, although barely, some sort of turmoil from inside the office.

 _"Just sit still, will you?! Matter fact, you shouldn't even be here at all!"_

 _"_ _Заткнись_ _! The old lady should just stay at home and knit!"_

 _"Wha?! At least I can knit! I'm more flexible than you are!"_

 _"Pah! Even Maus-chan can be more flexible than you!"_

 _"No matter! Just sit still and don't make troubles for the commander!"_

The admiral's face contorted upon hearing the two arguing voices from the other side of the door. However, it was less of an unpleasant expression, but more of a tired one. The admiral then sighed and knocked the door in a pattern; and she didn't immediately enter the room afterwards.

Hearing the knock, the two women inside the room stopped their bickering and went completely silent. After ten seconds of complete silence, the Admiral finally opened the door.

What awaits inside is the ordinary view of the admiral's personal office. However, the two women who were bickering with each other mere seconds ago were nowhere to be found. Only two thick black cases the size of what Houshou explained, though one is smaller than the other. It looked like it was made of steel, and it had the logo G&K engraved onto it. The admiral squinted upon seeing the case sitting still on the table.

"Admiral? What's wrong?" asked Houshou curiously, leaning her body forward to look at her commander's face, but in turn, she said;

"…Why are there two?"

"…miss Admiral?"

"A…ah, it's nothing. I did expect a delivery but I didn't remember expecting two…" with beads of sweat forming on her forehead, the admiral replied nervously for some reason.

"I suppose I was about to ask that as well, but where did the two of the guests go…" The light aircraft carrier put one of her palms on her cheek, pondering. "I was just about to serve them tea as well…"

"W-well, it's fine, Houshou-san, I believe they just wanted to deliver me these briefcase and hurry home to…whatever they need to do." She said, but with her current unease and expression, it is hard to take her words at face value. Houshou also felt so, but taking into account that the admiral might be saying the truth, there is still something that bothered Houshou about it.

"…but if that's so, it's rude to just drop off the delivery and just buzz off like that…" Houshou interjected with a clear pout. "Next time I see them I'll give them a mouthful like never before. No one is allowed to show such disrespectful behavior to my commander, be it the member of our navy or anyone else!"

"…"

"…"

Silence befalls the room. Houshou who finished her heartwarming(?) speech was still stuck at her determined pose with her fist clenched in front of her chest and burning passion in her eyes, while the admiral merely looked at her with admiration.

"Um…may I ask you to stop with your…staring, admiral…it's embarrassing." Finally, Houshou cleared her head and realized she had just done an embarrassing speech in front of her commander. "I talked too much, didn't I? If you can, please forget that I said anything…"

The admiral chuckled hearing her secretary's innocent request, but she rejected it. "No, no, it's fine," she said, "I'm glad that you said that, that's very nice of you. Thank you."

"W-well…it's…nothing."

Houshou lowered her head while the admiral looked over her with a smile on her face and her hand on her hips.

"Alright, I'll just take the cases and—"

"WE GOT TIRED OF WAITING SO HERE WE AAAARE!"

As the admiral was about to take the case, someone loudly pushed the double door open. She was rather short, black-haired with one side of her hair longer than the other. She was wearing a maroon red hoodie covering her usual outfit; a classic Japanese school swimwear weirdly mixed with sailor uniform, which, just like Iroha, made her whole get-up look more sensual than it actually is. She is the submarine I-14, who refers to herself as "Iyo".

""I-Iyoo!"" from behind the girl who burst the door open, the familiar face and a similar face to that who opened the door exclaimed while pulling on her shoulders. The familiar face belongs to one of the girls the admiral saw in her office sometimes ago; the heavy cruiser Furutaka, and the similar face simply refers to Iyo's twin, I-13, or "Hitomi" as she prefers to be called. She looked completely similar to her sister, from the way she looked to her body frame; hence she was wearing the exact same outfit, which was Japanese school swimwear below a maroon red hoodie given by her commander.

Afterwards, a tall girl with abundant chest and strikingly long braided white hair also waltzed in calmly, even ignoring the small girl who opened the room. With a delirious-sounding voice saying "Aaadmirall~" she bulldozed through the commotion and made a beeline towards the admiral before straightforwardly hugging her. The girl was actually slightly taller than the admiral, so she got the luxury of pulling the admiral's head to rest it on her abundant, soft chest.

""Unryuu!"" again, the two girls right outside the door yelled in the exact same time.

 ** _THUNK_**

"…Furutaka, where's Ooyodo?" asked the admiral with her voice muffled with the two bountiful hills of the carrier lady who lovingly embraced the admiral's head. In response, one of the girls outside the door who had been hollering to her teammates twitched and replied nervously.

"M-ma'am! She's—"

"You girls…! Didn't I ask you to go to the mess hall!?" Before the cruiser girl managed to reply the admiral's question, the familiar face of the command ship Ooyodo appeared from behind Furutaka. she looked like she had run all the way from the mess hall back to the admiral's room. "I thought you girls were following me to the cafeteria…but when I turned around just in front of the door, only one of you was there…"

"…umph sho yhou rhan oww vhe vay frm zhe mmmmmmm—!?"

"Admiral, it's ticklish~"

In response to Unryuu's rather seductive wriggling, the admiral repeatedly taps on her shoulder, beckoning the carrier lady to let go. She was also supported by the two girls outside the door who looked like they would tell the others not to be noisy meanwhile being noisy as they do so.

"O…Oh right, Unryuu-san, you're inconveniencing the commander!" the cruiser girl being the flagship of the Mako fleet exclaimed, one of her eyes literally glowed in agitation.

"Hmmm…? Doesn't Furutaka miss the admiral as well?" asked Unryuu in a slightly delirious tone as she turned her droopy eyes towards her fleet's flagship. The cruiser girl twitched slightly.

"Unryuu got a point!" said the girl who barged in first, her face brightening as if she just attained enlightenment. She proceeded to throw her tiny frame towards the admiral as well, violently hitting her small but developing(?) chest onto the admiral's waist area.

 ** _THUNK_**

"Iyooo…!" right next to Furutaka, it's Iyo's twin Hitomi's turn to yelp, but as Hitomi was already influenced by Unryuu, she's not backing down, saying, "But Hitomi also missed the commander, right? So expressing it is only natural! Don't you agree, admiral?"

"—?! **_(paf paf paf paf paf!)_** "

"See, she agreed to that too!"

"I…I suppose."

"…that was easy."

After Iyo's snappy comeback, her twin Hitomi followed to gingerly hug the suffocating admiral without even paying any attention to it; she made a beeline towards the other side of the admiral's waist and hugged her just like her sister did, only this time, her small body which was similar with her sister's, slowly stuck itself to her commander's struggling waist, and immediately afterwards, her expression changed to one of a blissful joy.

 ** _THUNK_**

The remaining girl Furutaka, however, missed her chance to hug her commander and could only stand on the side whining.

"Oh my, miss Admiral." Just as Furutaka almost cried, another girl came from beyond the door. "It seems like she's in a bit of a pickle, isn't she?" she continued, placing her hand on her cheek. Her hair was fastened by a bright pink headband, but the hair on the side of her head that looked like droopy dog ears bobbed, giving an illusion that it's living.

"Miss Taigei," the one who responded first was the mother ship Houshou. "how do you do?"

"How do you do, miss Houshou. What happened here?"

"Well…"

Houshou spent a whole minute explaining what had happened; from the whole fleet's disobedience to what resulted in them sticking to the admiral like a bunch of bees sticking themselves to a pole covered with honey. After listening to Houshou's explanation, the submarine tender Taigei nodded.

"Girls? Everyone? May I have your attention?" Taigei exclaimed just behind the suffocating admiral. Her voice was cute and gentle, childish even, but it carries over a level of charm and charisma that makes it hard for anyone to ignore; including her fleet-mates who would normally be too busy hugging their commander. "Please get off the commander at once; it is improper and the admiral is clearly bothered by your action." She said sternly. The members of her fleet looked troubled for several seconds, but they somewhat understood that they are slightly inconveniencing their commander, and therefore they pulled away,

"PUAH!" and effectively allowed her to breathe free once more.

"A-admiral, are you okay?" Furutaka asked from the side, still with a hint of regret on her face that she didn't get to "greet" her admiral like the others.

"Uuuuhh…" the admiral could only muster a grunt as a reply as she was still trying to regulate her breathing. In the meantime, the submarine tender Taigei slowly approached her and gave the admiral a gentle pat on the back.

"There, there, it's okay now miss admiral," said Taigei lovingly. As she did, the admiral managed to calm down and breathe normally at last. She then again straightened her back to face the crew.

"L…listen, girls…if you didn't notice, I'm also a human who apparently needs to breathe, so if you keep suffocating me like that I'll die…" she explained with an exasperated expression.

"That's right, everyone. Please try not to burden the commander too much." Next to the admiral, Taigei also voiced her support…all the while inching closer to the admiral before finally wrapping herself around her commander's arms.

 ** _THUNK THUNK, CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK_**

As expected, her action caused some backlash from the room. Iyo was the first to voice her complaint, yelling "Aah, Taigei-san is unfair!", followed with Unryuu who lazily said, "I want to hold the admiral as well!"

"No complaining," Taigei interjected, "You all had your fill, it's only fair if I have a turn as well."

The girls pouted with an audible "Buu~" from the whole Mako fleet, while on the side, "…But I haven't had my share as well…" Furutaka could only grumble inaudibly.

"A…anyways, you guys should go to the mess hall now! I was receiving a delivery and I need to take care of it!" the admiral shouted while still fidgeting from the feeling of ample mounds sticking to her arm. "I'll greet you all formally later on in the mess hall, so you guys should go ahead, alright?"

"Understooood~" said the whole Mako fleet in unison. Though with a slight tinge of disappointment, the girls chose to abide by their commander's orders. The admiral also saw Furutaka's dissatisfaction, which was notably different than all the other shipgirls, and therefore approached her and put her hand on her head.

"Furutaka," she said, lowering her tone. "I know it might be tiring, but do your best. I believe in your capability. That's why I make you the flagship, remember?" While gently stroking the cruiser girl's head, the admiral smiled down upon her. The flagship, after hearing her admiral's encouragement, instinctively smiled.

"T…thank you, admiral." She looked back at the admiral happily, her blushing face seemed like it's glowing like her left eye. Seeing their exchange, the submarine tender right next to the admiral also smiled warmly, before tightening her hug on the admiral's arm while rubbing her cheeks upon her commander's shoulder.

"Give us some more love again later, okaay?" Unryuu bid her farewell as she walked towards the door, winking seductively as she did.

"Yes, yes, just go."

"Yaaay~" Unryuu cheered as she throws her arms up before walking out of the room. With her height, as she threw her arms up, she almost hit her wrists to the upper door frame, but she managed to dodge it in time. After her, Furutaka left the room, while the twin submarine sisters went ahead before her, dragging the command cruiser, who was standing by, with them.

"Well then, I shall excuse myself, miss Admiral." Lastly, Taigei released her hold and bowed in front of the admiral. After thus, she turned towards the other member in the room Houshou. "Houshou-san too, I shall see you later."

"…" However, Houshou was spacing out, looking down to the floor.

"…Houshou-san?"

"…huh? Ah, y-yes, miss Admiral?" Second time's the charm; however, it was the admiral who called out to her.

"…Taigei is leaving, so she bid farewell." Said the admiral after a second of pause.

"Oh, y-yes, I apologize that I spaced out. I shall see you soon, miss Taigei." Said Houshou. While she was still flustered of her blunder and depressed about something, she still managed to give a perfect bow to Taigei.

Taigei looked like she still wanted to say something, but after throwing a glance at the admiral who seemed to be just as concerned, she felt that it would be better if they both talked with each other without her interference.

"Well then, miss admiral, I shall go now."

"Ou. See you later." Responding to Taigei, the admiral gives her a rather casual salute, and Taigei bowed back slightly before exiting the room, only leaving the admiral and her sulking secretary ship alone.


	7. The Phoenix and The Guns

_Author's note: Here's the crossover_

* * *

"…"

"…"

What Taigel left in the office was a rather strange, awkward silence.

The admiral, although sometimes can be dense, could at least understand that something is not right.

Houshou, the mother of Japanese carriers, is almost always known to be the mood maker of the room. She would be a caring, cheerful person with motherly vibes. Every time someone is in a bad mood, she would cheer them up without fail, and she wouldn't think of stopping before they cheered back up.

But now, she was the one that seemed like she was sulking.

However, the admiral wasn't fazed by it.

She does look concerned, but there are no traces in which she seemed troubled.

Maybe it's the composure of a commander? Or maybe she doesn't care? The mother ship is somewhat scared to find out the answer, so she continued to look down to the ground silently as if escaping the reality.

The admiral looked around the room, seemingly trying to find a topic to talk about to break the ice. The admiral usually would like to keep the silence as she was one who enjoy it, but knowing that Houshou is having a crisis, even she thought it wouldn't be the correct decision.

 _Ah,_ the admiral let out a voice, after which she hastily walked towards the thick duffel bag she brought back from her vacation. Houshou noticed the sound of the duffel bag unzipping, and that snapped Houshou out. She turned her head up and approached the admiral.

"Do you need some help, miss Admiral?" she asked, approaching her commander who was kneeling as she searched her bag next to her table. It turned out her help wasn't necessary because the admiral immediately found what she needed.

She pulled a rectangular wooden box that looked like a classic music box.

"I was thinking of giving you this but I always forgot." The admiral said while unlatching the lock with a rather loud click and presenting what's inside towards the mothership.

"T-this is?"

Inside the box were a pair of hair sticks with the length of around 30 centimeters; the hair accessory that you stick into the bun of your hair. It seemed brand new, but it had a…peculiar style. The metallic hair sticks are colored dull golden, which, despite looking dull, somehow didn't drop its charm. At the end of it, a hanging decoration in the shape of three bullets stuck in a row like a belt ammunition.

"It's uh…some sort of a thanks, I guess?" the admiral scratched her head. "I…saw how you're very much influential and helpful in keeping the fleets in check, cheering up the girls and everything. I know giving mental support is a huge load of work, and so you've been a huge help in keeping up the fleet's morale. Thank you very much."

In response, Houshou wasn't sure what to feel about her gift.

At one side, she was hesitant to receive it because she felt she didn't deserve it. Another side of her thought it wouldn't be fair for the other girls if only Houshou received a gift from their commander.

But at the same time, she was tremendously overjoyed for a few reasons. First is that she was clearly jealous of the other girls who were able to straightforwardly gain affection from the commander by being affectionate themselves or proving their worth, and to have received an attention and even a gift exclusive to her was more than everything she could've asked for. Second, Houshou who thought that she never really had any worth in the first place had managed to do something worthy of a help to her beloved commander.

"I got that from my other workplace. It's kind of a weird design, but I hope you like it." The commander giggled awkwardly. "Also if you're not used to using one or you can't use it, I can help you put it up."

"I-I can't possibly be so selfish…!" While still holding back her tears of joy and the impulse to burst out shouting some generic victory line, Houshou rebuked.

"Selfish? As if. Heck, I think you even deserve this much." The admiral smoothly—almost as if instinctively—put her hand on Houshou's head and gently start to pet her. "You did well, Houshou-san."

"…aauu…"

A sound that cannot be heard from the mothership Houshou at any given moment; the admiral just witnessed the strong caring woman in front of her just casually and defenselessly…purr.

The admiral only continued to pet her secretary ship's head while the person in question hugged her gift in front of her chest while enjoying her commander's affection. Of course, the admiral wasn't the type of person who would decide to ruin the moment by random shouting,

But the admiral's "guests" was.

"AAAAALRIGHT THAT'S JUST ABOUT ENOUGH FOR THIS DIABETES!"

"?!"

"!?"

One of them decided to do just that.

"Commander! How long are you going to pat her head?!" the young girl who seemingly popped out of nowhere was fuming as she puffed her lovely cheeks. Her blue eyes glared daggers at the admiral as she put her slender arms on her hips.

"I…can only apologize, miss commander." Another girl also somehow appeared behind the bright silver hair of the previous girl and bowed her head down in front of the admiral.

The admiral and her secretary ship froze mid-head-pat. The girl who was somewhat angry at the admiral and her assistant was wearing a red beret that matches her blood red scarf. Her blue overcoat mixed with thin dress that almost looked like a babydoll slightly revealed her pale stomach and black underwear she put on.

Meanwhile the shorter girl next to her was wearing something like a black tube top covered with a short jacket that looked like an officer uniform and matching thigh-length pencil skirt. On top of her shoulder-length hair was a beret that matched her uniform with an iron cross stuck on it.

"…what are you doing here…" asked the admiral. Her question wasn't really directed to the both of them, hence the structure, but it was exclusively asked for Nines.

"It's not fair if only Lu-chan goes to the commander!" Nines said with her eyes blazing and the absence of even a shred of shame.

"W…please bear with me for a minute but…who might these people be, miss Admiral?" Houshou who was flabbergasted and ever-so-slightly irritated that her comfortable time was interrupted asked her commander who already put a palm on her face.

"So…I suppose I can only introduce you all." The admiral sighed. "Houshou-san, this is Lu, and this is Nines." Introduced the admiral, pointing at the girl with the short jacket and the girl with the red beret consecutively. "They're just like you; personifications of weapons, only that they're personifications of guns. Lu is the personification of Luger P08 and Nines is the 9A-91 assault rifle. They're the ones behind the loud thunking and clicking earlier when the Mako fleet was here."

"Oh my," Houshou said, "and you are…?" and then she asked the admiral; not for her name, but her relationship with the two "guns".

"Just like who I am to you girls; I'm their assigned commander." The admiral responded. "One of them are here under my request, but the other is…"

"…she panicked when the commander went away, and then she overheard Kalina receiving the call for my request before smuggling herself in with me." Said Lu with an exasperated sigh, before muttering _"even though I could have spent my time alone with the commander…"_ barely audibly.

"Commander, didn't I ask you to tell me if you're going away from my side?"

"But I did!" the admiral almost yelled. "I told all of you that I'll be going somewhere four days ago in the meeting, do you even remember what I talked about?"

"No, I was too fascinated by your charm!"

"Sometimes I wonder if I'm supposed to be amazed or disappointed with your attitude, Nines." Once again, the commander could only plant her face in her hand. "Besides, do you know why I requested Lu to be here?"

"…No?"

9A-91—or Nines didn't think much about why the Luger P08 was requested by her commander to come and serve alongside her, and she merely think that it was a chance for her to be by her commander's side.

However, at the sea where the enemy force is literally kilometers outside of the rifle's effective range, an assault rifle serves virtually no purpose. Conversely, even if there are enemies within range, they will be attacking the command building directly, which even though Nines would do well as a carbine, pistols like the Luger P08 would perform a lot better for close quarter combats. Arguably, 9A-91 wouldn't even like the stationed position; given its structure built with mostly steel and little polymer, she shouldn't be able to withstand the environment full of seawater even if it's only its vapor.

For being lighter and more compact, the admiral chose the Luger P08, Lu, as her office weapon instead of any other weapons that are available where she served as a commander.

Before the admiral took her vacation, the naval headquarters had allowed her to possess a small weapon of office. She was offered a kodachi, a small Japanese blade, but she then requested that she would choose her own personal defense weapon, which was permitted. She then decided to pick one of the girls in the army she led to bring with her when she's absent.

It was…a wrong decision, for the most part, but she couldn't take it back.

"…Do you know what an office weapon is, Nines?" asked Lu with a serious face.

As expected, Nines shook her head.

"You see…it's—for one—a personal defense weapon." The admiral said, putting her hand on her hip. "but if all else fails, it's a last ditch effort for intelligence defense."

Nines tilted her head in confusion. Houshou, who was standing behind the admiral gasped as she understood what her commander said and turned her face towards the pistol girl with a paled face.

"That means…a suicide weapon."

This time, upon hearing the term _suicide_ , Nines let out a sound of agitation and confusion. "C-commander is not going to kill herself, is she?" she asked in slight panic.

"I will have to, if it comes down to it." The admiral sighed, "and _now_ do you understand the weight of my request to Lu?"

"…?" Nines still look panicked, but she was still confused.

" _Scheiße_ …That means I have to kill the commander if needed, _dummkopf!_ "

And that one sentence sums up the weight of Lu's duty, and why it was a mistake for the Admiral to have picked her.

It was very depressing for the Admiral and Lu upon her decision to assign Lu as someone who's going to be next to the admiral in her very last moment, but the admiral had decided previously that…

"Well, if I'm supposed to die, I'd prefer to die in the hands of my lovely subordinates."

The admiral flashed a smile…a lonely smile that breaks the hearts of everyone in the room.

…

Silence followed, and everyone in the room felt like the temperature dropped. Everybody was frozen, they did not know what to say or do; all of them can only…hang their head in despair.

"Haaa…"

"?"

A loud sigh.

"…efforts."

It came from behind the admiral.

"Houshou-san?"

"…need to redouble our efforts." Houshou the mothership muttered with her head hung. "We need to redouble our efforts…I wouldn't want miss Admiral to be killed or even kill herself." She said in such low, trembling voice that it almost sounded like she was growling. "Anyone that let that happen…I won't forgive them."

To the silent rage, the two gun girls shuddered. Lu felt it even worse than the Russian gun, as she was the one tasked with killing her commander when the time comes, and she felt that the shipgirl's rage was especially directed at her.

"You two," Houshou continued, receiving the gun girls' shock as a response. "You are also the Admiral's…I mean, miss Ashikaga Ayumi's subordinates, right?"

""Y-Yes!"" Lu and Nines responded simultaneously.

Houshou fell on her knees with a thud, and as her face shook, beads of tears fell from her face to the floor. After sobbing, she continued with a cry; "I'm leaving miss Ashikaga's safety to you…", and at that exact moment, the mothership, for the first time in anyone's acknowledgement, perfectly and gracefully performed a _dogeza_ while pleading to the two as though she's begging for her life.


	8. Prologue to the (Mock) Battle

_Author's note and Disclaimer: I have zero idea about actual naval tactics._

* * *

Skip forward for an hour and 30 minutes; the mock battle is about to commence.

The first ones to battle each other are the Hammerhead fleet and the Mako fleet. The two fleets members stood around each other, discussing their strategy to win.

The Hammerhead fleet includes the Light Carrier Houshou, Torpedo Cruiser Kiso, Battleship Ise, Destroyer Murasame and Fubuki, and Heavy Cruiser Haguro. The Mako fleet, on the other hand, includes the Heavy Cruiser Furutaka, Aircraft Carrier Unryuu, Aircraft-carrying submarines Hitomi and Iyo, Destroyer Shigure, and lastly the Submarine Tender Taigei.

The Hammerhead fleet focuses on surface combat, with Ise and Haguro being the hard-hitting members with their main cannons' firepower, without forgetting to boost their torpedo capabilities with the torpedo cruiser Kiso and ample additions from the two destroyers.

However, their opponents aren't really the type that they can face head-on in a surface battle. They suspected that their main fighting force will include the two aircraft-carrying submarine sisters, while their tender Taigei will not likely be stationed in the fray and would most likely be guarded by Furutaka, their flagship. Therefore, their usual strategy of having their destroyers sneak up behind them and take out their support ships will not be effective as Furutaka possesses enough firepower to deter—not necessarily stop—the destroyers' advances.

At the same time, the Hammerhead Fleet's main force which consist of the torpedo cruiser Kiso, Battleship Ise, Heavy Cruiser Haguro and their back-liner Houshou, will be facing the issue of having to look up and down. The opposing side had Unryuu and the two submarine sisters which could send terrifying air squadrons to overwhelm them with bombs and torpedoes. All the while, they would have to be careful and look down to avoid getting caught by the two submarine sisters.

 _"Sixty seconds."_ From the earpieces attached to the shipgirls' ears, their commander's voice rang curtly.

"I guess we can only stick together, huh?" Ise said, folding her arms. "If we send each other to fight on their own they'll be picked off easily.

"Agreed," Kiso echoed, "we need to stick together to solidify our anti-air curtain of fire, especially against that Unryuu."

"Alright, so I suppose we should stick within…100 meters? What formation should we go for?" asked Fubuki.

"We can either go with a defensive formation or focus on our offensive against Iyo and Hitomi, so probably…either diamond formation or line abreast?" Murasame put up a thinking pose, placing her hand on her chin before asking, "what do you think, Houshou-san?"

"I think we should go defensively," instead, Ise was the first to answer "just to be safe, don't you thin—?"

"Line abreast. We're going in hard on them." Before Ise completed her sentence, the mother ship cut her short with a hint of agitation in her voice. "We're going to comb the sea with our fleet to increase our detection for the submarines—"

 _"Rejected."_ Maybe as a karma for Houshou to cut off her comrade, the admiral cut her off as well. _"Go with diamond formation; Ise goes first, followed by Kiso and Fubuki side by side. Behind them should be Murasame and Haguro; again, side by side, while Houshou-san should stay behind the whole group."_

In the mock battle, the admiral takes charge of _a_ fleet, instead of both sides involved. The reason is simple; because the fleet also need to train to follow orders properly in the combat theatre. In the beginning, the admiral left the group to formulate their own strategies before supplementing them with what she knows and what the girls should do; which is what just happened. The admiral was proud that her subordinates managed to understand that they should not detach the members of the fleet one by one for offensive purposes and instead sticking together to ensure the integrity of the entire fleet.

However, if they were to follow Houshou's suggestion, they would arguably fare better in the anti-submarine warfare that they would likely engage in, but that will not only provide less protection for units being on the either ends of the formation, it is also increases the difficulty of aiming due to fear of friendly fire.

 _"Distance yourselves about 100 meters around each other so you can evade attacks more easily. Kiso and Fubuki are to ensure Ise's protection, Murasame and Haguro is to do the same to Houshou-san."_ The admiral continued sternly over the radio. _"There could ideally be some windows of opportunity to attack the sisters, I'm sure you know about it already, so advance slowly and carefully. I wouldn't like it if my units to be severely injured in a practice match."_

The girls gulped their saliva. "U-understood, miss Admiral." Ise responded.

An artificial cracking sound in the radio, probably a result from the Admiral changing the channel from broadcasting only to the Hammerhead fleet into an open channel for everyone to listen. _"Alright, prep time is over. All units of the Hammerhead and the Mako fleet, please immediately go to your designated dry dock and prepare for launch."_

""""""Understood"""""", the voices of the Hammerhead fleet's members echoed in the open harbor.

Following orders, they went to their designated dry docks. It took quite a hike to reach the front of their dry docks given how each measures over 30 meters in width along with ten meter gaps of platforms between them.

The shipgirls finally reached their docks after a minute of light jogging. They stood on a slightly elevated circle on the ground. As they did, mechanical arms were raised from three points around the circle, and much like the _Iron Man_ in the movie, the arms assisted the shipgirls in installing their rigs, and while it did, bits of hexagon-shaped particles started appearing in the flooded dry dock. The particles started out with thousands of snow particle-sized ones, which then together consolidate into bigger hexagon particles, until the whole bluish white particles come together and resemble the shape of a ship.

After a minute, the silhouette became clear. The ships were built with the particle; suspended for about three meters above the waters in the dry dock, and the ships represents every member of the fleet.

The light carrier Houshou, the battleship Ise, the torpedo cruiser Kiso, the heavy cruiser Haguro, and lastly, destroyers Fubuki and Murasame.

After the particles converged, a line of light seemed to finally sweep through the bow to the aft of the ship, which in turn, seemingly painted the entirety of the ship as it goes, and after it finishes, the whole ship came down to the dock slowly, but with enough force to create a huge splash.

 _"I think we should change the system a bit so that our base didn't get flooded for so often…"_ the admiral muttered through the intercom.

The seawater that escaped the dock mostly was not caused by the splash, but because of the overflow that happened as the ship is slowly lowered in to the dock, so the shipgirls weren't as much wet, as the water only flowed across the platform beneath their feet, but at times, it poses trouble nevertheless.

The shipgirls nodded in agreement with a wry smile, before focusing back to their duty and leaped all the way from the dock to the bow of their respective ships. It was an inhuman feat to say the least, because the destroyer girls aside, Ise and Kiso, for example had to leap over 20 meters to get to her bow.

After they settled in the edge of the bows of their ships, they did a little bit of equipment calibration. those who had their main cannons in their rigs did a bit of an aiming practice with them while checking their armaments while Houshou checked her miniature flight deck attached to her left arm and her own ship's flight deck at the same time.

The main cannon rigs of the shipgirls serves as an aiming tool. Fubuki who had her twin 127mm guns on her fist for example, is able to turn the turrets on her ship to match where the gun on the rig is pointing at. Unlike their past counterparts, however, the projected ships controlled by the shipgirls are able to turn their guns while ignoring the laws of physics, allowing it to turn as fast as quick as the shipgirls' reactions.

"Houshou, system check; all green." She plucked the string tightly bound to the bow tightly that it made a twang.

"Seconded," Ise reported, "no abnormalities detected."

"Haguro, all green."

"Kiso, locked and loaded."

"Murasame, the second turret feels a bit weird, but I can manage."

"Fubuki, system check complete, ready to go, admiral."

 _"Understood. Murasame, are you sure it won't affect your performance in this training?"_

"None at all, commander, it's very much trivial, it's merely a lag of .056 seconds." Murasame said, turning her gun again and again to obtain the time lag down to at least three decimal places for specificity.

 _"Time lag matters a lot in combat, Murasame."_ The admiral responded curtly. After thus, she mumbled for about five seconds, seemingly doing something on her end, before reporting back to Murasame. _"I've tweaked it to adjust to your .0568 lag, go check on it again to be sure."_

Again, Murasame rotated her gun turret in a very wide angle with her rig as an aiming tool. "It's…perfect, admiral! You even managed to pin it down to four decimal places!"

 _"Well, this is about the only thing I'm good at."_ The admiral responded before chuckling. The girls on the fleet mostly giggled too in response to her answer.

"I wish you can be more sensitive about our feelings as well sometimes," muttered Fubuki, smiling wryly, but as it was merely a mutter, she only received a response saying _"What?"_

After dismissing the conversation, the girls are ready to set out…however,

 _"Anyone seen the admiral?"_

"Hm?"

The intercom transmitted a different voice. It was the command ship Ooyodo.

"Isn't she supposed to be in the command room?" asked Ise, curious.

 _"Yes, the Bramble fleet is here with her earlier but she snuck out somewhere."_

 _"Don't worry about it, Ooyodo, I can still oversee the battlefield through the tablet, even though I'm not in the command room, there shouldn't be any issues."_ After a crack-like static sound, the familiar voice rang again. What followed was a loud yell of disappointment from about seven people at the same time; it was the cry of the entire Bramble fleet.

Hyuuga included.

 _"I thought we're going to be spending some time with the admiral in the command room!"_ the leader of the Bramble fleet voiced her complaint first.

 _"Surely disappointing."_ Continued Hyuuga, although sounding slightly sarcastic.

" _See miss Admiral, even Hyuuga is sad that she doesn't get to be with you!"_ Kako echoed subsequently.

 _"I'm…I'm not really—,"_

 _"Alright, alright I'm sorry for that, but quit the chatter now, you're flooding the channel."_ Sighed the admiral, giving up.

 _"You'll have to give us something in return later!"_ said Ushio, almost as if desperately pleading.

 _"Okay I'll give you what you want, just…Ooyodo, keep the channel clear, will you?"_

 _"My apologies, miss admiral, but my voice and their voices are in the same channel…we're in the command room, remember?"_

The admiral shut her mouth after an "oh…"

 _"A-anyways, Bramble fleet and Hammerhead fleet, are you ready?!"_

 _"We're the Mako fleet though!"_ from another channel, Furutaka from the Mako fleet echoed.

 _"Damn!"_ cursed the admiral _"A-anyways, are you all ready?!"_

 _"Y-yesh…"_

"W-we are ready, miss Admiral…" Ise responded gingerly with a wry smile afterwards.

 _"Alright! Commence the training!"_

* * *

Their objective is the strait right outside the naval base. It wasn't hard to get to the location, the admiral said _"just go straight and you'll get to the strait"_. Nobody knows if she did it intentionally or not, but if it is, it's an excruciatingly bad pun.

The six members of the Hammerhead fleet cruised in a diamond-shaped orderly fashion just as their admiral instructed, with each being very careful not to go too quick or fall behind in the formation. Within 30 minutes, the ships arrived at the rendezvous point.

 _"Alright, the other ships should be reaching their starting point soon, so before we start the practice, does any of you have any questions?"_ the admiral said via the intercom right as the Hammerhead's fleet slowed down into position.

"This place is not really a strait, is it, Admiral?" Kiso said as she rested her hand on the blade strapped to her hip. Her jet black cape along with her dark green-ish hair fluttered in the salty wind of the sea as she stood straight in the bow of her ship.

 _"Well, the size difference of the islands and rocks around here kind of built some sort of miniature strait, so that's why the higher-ups called this a_ strait _. It's not like I'm the one who suggested it either."_ The admiral replied.

"Hmm," pondered Ise, whose beautiful figure almost resembles the ship's figurehead as she was sitting down at the edge of her bow. "I agree with the admiral. I mean the two big islands…almost look like a mountain even, gives that mainland feeling, and the sea looks like a pass."

There are two major islands with towering height about fifteen kilometers apart from each other. In between, there are statistically 44 land masses. Only 6 of them are significantly large, and the rest are merely rocky areas.

The fleet will be clashing perpendicularly to the main islands' line; ideally they'll meet in the middle of the strait.

"Do you think this area is man-made, admiral?" Fubuki asked, scanning the area carefully.

 _"I'm 90% sure it is. The 10% is just mostly surrounding how I can't believe how can they do it."_ The admiral answered cheerily, half as a joke. _"My friend once told me that he'd heard about how Singapore is importing, of all things,_ sand _from Indonesia to reclaim land for their development, and this might be another example of it, just on a bigger scale"_

"Isn't it supposed to be a smaller scale?"

 _"Who knows. Judging by the size of Singapore and this place, I'm not even sure which one is bigger."_ The admiral's voice continued streaming into the shipgirls' ear as they waited for the other fleet to get into position. The two opposing fleets did not leave from the same dock area in the port, and the reason was simple; to kept secrecy of each others' plans against each other. As such, because the opposing fleet's RV location being further and starting point are different, reaching the destination takes time. The Hammerhead fleet meanwhile waiting for the Mako fleet to get into position, enjoyed the sun beating on their skin as well as the wind caressing their cheeks. Until,

 _"Mako fleet_ Actual _to Hammerhead, do you read?"_ after fifteen minutes of mindless chatter between the Hammerheads and the admiral, the radio let out a static and transmits incoming traffic from the other fleet.

"Hammerhead _Actual_ ," responded Houshou, "We read you. What is your status?"

 _"Mako_ Actual _, we have reached our destination. Awaiting further orders from_ Megalodon _."_ Furutaka's voice continued transmitting.

As they are closing on the training, the Admiral required the fleet to start talking in simple code. It's merely to make it easier for the admiral and her assistants to record combat data as well as adding formality as well as training communication methods in case of actual combat.

"Megalodon _copy_ ," replied the admiral; she was to be addressed as 'megalodon' by the rest of the crew upon missions. _"All units, action stations. Combat practice of Hammerhead fleet and Mako fleet begins…"_

Seemingly doing their last checks on their equipment, several clacking and thunking noises sounded around the six ships of the fleet.

"Haa…" again, a familiar loud sigh piercing the sounds of waves crashing onto the ships' hulls sounded. "I swear to my name that not to fail you, miss Admiral…"

The voice behind the sigh muttered sternly. She picked up a shining golden stick from the pocket in her dougi, undid her dark blue ribbon tying her hair into a ponytail and put up her hair nimbly with the decorated stick.

 _"Now."_

And so, the curtain rises.

* * *

 _More Author's Note:_ Actual _is the first member/leader of a squad, but in this case, I use it as the designation of the flagship._


	9. Interlude

"Ugg…" groaned the white-haired girl, desperately holding her stomach with her face almost as pale as her hair color. "Are we done here, commander?"

"No…?" the admiral responded only with a face that says that nothing wrong is happening at all. As a matter of fact, the situation was very much the opposite for the girl. "I told you that you'll not like the sea, but you still came here anyways." Sighed the admiral.

"B-but I never heard that it's going to be around the sea…"

"If you listen _really_ closely to what Kalina-san and I was talking about you must've heard that we're going here." The silver-haired girl on the other side of the commander said, her voice echoed in the narrow hallway. The admiral's sigh felt contagious to her and before she knew it, she exhaled a lump of air from her chest as well.

"Less talking, more walking," the admiral beckoned, continuing to walk in the metallic hallway. "We need to get to the command room quickly. You can be in your gun form if you don't want to feel sick all the time, Nines."

"Uuu…I can't see how it'll help but…" Nines, or so she called, had no other choice. She can't bear the atmosphere that she'd do anything to stop it.

The admiral, knowing that Nines would probably take her advice, reached her hand out, and Nines' body shattered into small particles that was just like those the ships were made with. It soon converged above the admiral's hand.

"Should I do it as well, miss commander?" asked Luger as the converging particle of Nines start to form the shape of a rifle receiver in her commander's hand.

"Sure, I've got a holster prepared for you." The admiral smiled to her subordinate. Hearing her reply, a smile bloomed in Lu's face.

"Thank you, miss commander." She said happily.

"Let Nines finish for now, and I'll pick you up. Can you hold this for a bit?"

"Roger."

The admiral/commander passed her control tablet to the P08 and she put her two hands underneath the location Nines' particles are converging. Within the next fifteen seconds, the scan line wipes over Nines' body and a complete, folded-up 9A-91 rifle drops into the admiral's hands.

 _There we go,_ the admiral muttered, inspecting the 9A-91 rifle in her hand. She fiddled around, and upon noticing the strap, she circled the rifle over her back.

She took the tablet back from Lu and then allowed her to manifest her gun form. Again, she shattered and converged her particle above the admiral's hand Maybe because she's smaller than Nines, the P08 manifests a lot quicker than the rifle.

For one last time, the admiral checked her two lovely guns; their magazines, their ammunition, and of course, their safety.

"Right, it's all good." The admiral said. She put Lu in the holster strapped on her thigh beneath her short pleated skirt, before continuing to move down the narrow hallway. "Time to go to the command room."


	10. The Beginning of the Battle

_Author's Reminder: Port side is left side of the ship, and Starboard side is the right side_ _ _of the ship.__

* * *

The battle began.

The six ships of the Hammerhead fleet proceeded slowly to match their larger ships' speed to not break out of formation. They do not expect to find any of their enemy's ships as a first contact. They'll mostly probably be spotted by the enemy aircrafts first before coming into contact with enemy ships. Detection is obviously important, arguably especially for the Mako fleet. They could solely focus on detection of the enemy fleet and direct their submarines to do their magic. Even Unryuu the carrier could utilize her attack aircrafts to fly high for use of detection and avoid detection and the curtain of anti-air fire, but since it would be very much of a waste, it's less likely to happen.

The question is; what should you do about it?

Should they deploy fighter aircrafts to counter their scouts? But what if they have fighter escorts? Should they deploy their own scout aircrafts? But again, what if they have a fighter squadron to counter it? With Houshou's limited squadron, losing an aircraft meant a lot more than if the Mako fleet does, so they must be very careful about they're going to use it for.

 _"Megalodon to Kiso, deploy your seaplanes and Houshou, deploy some fighters to cover for the scouts; make it a flight of four."_ The admiral relayed her command to the fleet. _"Ise, load Beehive shell on turret two."_

"Both guns, miss Admiral?"

 _"Both. Load AP in the rest. Haguro, you too start loading AP, yeah?"_

"Copy. Reloading with necessary shells."

"Understood, miss Admiral."

After the two girls transmit their response, Ise and Haguro rotated her cannons in her rigs. Ise pulled out two red, fist-sized shell from one of the containers strapped to her waist and loaded the shells into the rig that corresponds to the second cannon. All the while she did that, the ship, mainly the second main cannon, emits loud clunking sounds as if it's being loaded with something. After locking in the two shells in the chamber, she proceeded to open the other cannons to load it with Armor Penetrating (AP) rounds. She had previously already loaded High Explosive (HE) rounds into it, so she first needed to take it out before she can load with AP. Haguro also followed her own procedures to re-arm herself with AP shells, which is almost the same as Ise's though using different methods to open her cannons. After reloading all her guns, Ise and Haguro simultaneously relayed back to the commander saying ""Guns ready!""

 _"Fubuki and Murasame, load HE on your turrets."_ The commander said. She thought that the penetrative power of the two ships' main guns would not be very influential in destroying the enemy ships' internal compartments, so she suggested that it's better for the two destroyers—who arguably wouldn't even use their main guns that much against their enemies—to wreak havoc in the enemy fleet's superstructure instead.

And even to Unryuu who barely had any superstructures sticking out, if it could set fire to the enemy carrier's flight deck, she's basically useless.

""Understood."" Having no problems with their commander's decision, the aforementioned names responded simultaneously.

 _"Good. How's the scout plane going?"_ the admiral asked. Kiso checked the catapult launcher on her bridge and it was slowly rotating towards her starboard side with the floatplane mounted.

"It's up on the catapult. Launching in 3…2…1…" and after Kiso's countdown, she snapped her finger and the seaplane docked on the catapult atop her bridge launched. "Directions, Admiral?"

 _"Head west. Circle around the battlefield and get as much information as possible. Do not engage the enemy as much as possible."_

"Rog'" Kiso replied, readjusting her hat that was messed up by the wind. It almost looked like she was tipping her head to her commander's order.

 _"Houshou-san?"_

"Understood," Afterwards, following her commander's words, the only carrier of the group Houshou nocked four arrows on her large bow at the same time. She steadily aimed her arrows towards the floatplane that Kiso just launched, before releasing it.

The arrows seemed to spontaneously combust with blue flame as it leaves the bow and disappeared right after. In turn, the air shook as four huge blue fireballs burst outwards from the end of Houshou's flight deck, right to her left and right, two at a time with an interval of barely half a second. The fireballs cut through the air at almost supersonic speed, curving its way towards the starboard side—towards where Kiso's floatplanes are. After its curves, the fireballs slowed down to about 500 kilometers per hour and from each fireball, an A6M Zero fighter aircraft emerged.

"Zeroes launched." She exhaled the rest of the air in her lung through her nose, as if satisfied.

The Zeroes launched by Houshou sped up before joining its formation with the A6M2-N launched by Kiso, whose afterwards slowly disappears from sight as it got smaller with distance.

 _"Well done you two."_ Commended the commander, _"The rest of you, proceed slowly and stand by. Keep your eyes glued to your sonars and radars."_

"Speaking of which, commander," Fubuki probed, "how come you never give us any active sonars?"

 _"Simple enough; it kinda ruins the ecosystem."_ the admiral sighed subtly. _"The US Navy once developed an active sonar that can go up to around 235 decibels. It wasn't even just a pulse; it's a continuous stream of…fucking awful noises like a very ugly-sounding shriek or a fork scratched against your hulls."_

The shipgirls shuddered, probably in pain from their commander's explanation.

 _"We humans aren't that strong, you see. I read in the internet that about 200 decibels can burst our lungs, and 10 decibels louder than that, we're basically dead."_

"But you're not going to go out with us anyways, right commander?" Haguro continued, her tone indicated that she was slightly concerned.

 _"Well it's not always about me,"_ the commander said, _"like I said, it ruins the_ ecosystem _, right? Animals like whales and dolphins are more sensitive to sound than we are. Active sonars don't necessarily kill them because they live in the water, but that could risk deafening them, and a certain whale researcher said that deaf whales are dead whales."_

"Ah…" someone lamented. Whoever it was, nobody knows.

 _"I know that our active sonar might not be_ that _bad, but just in case I refrained from using them."_ Said the admiral, sounding like she was rubbing her head. _"Besides, passive sonars work just as fine, especially against the abyssal subs that don't care much about their environment."_

"Right…they sometimes just blast their active sonars like some 90's kids carrying a subwoofer." Kiso said with a wry smile.

 _"That's why it's easy to find them too, right?"_ the admiral continued, chuckling.

"That and how we always find them cruising in periscope depth." Ise said, "it's easy even for me to find them when they're like that."

"Even without carrying the _Zuiun_ , the Fusou sisters and even regular battleships like Ise-san can sink them down easily."

 _"That's what we should use today. There are some windows when the Mako Fleet's submarines should surface to deploy and/or retrieve their_ Seiran _s, so by then, even Ise can attack them."_ The admiral suggested. _"Then they could be attacked by torpedoes if they are to attack you with their torpedoes, it's a mutual exchange by that point."_

The rest of the fleet nodded silently.

 _"Be careful though because if they're at their ideal attacking position, you'll be at a disadvantage because you'll be exposing your entire broadside while you can only torpedo them from the front, and you know it's not that easy to do."_

"Right…", muttered the ships.

 _"Either way, everyone at the ready; I saw three blips in the radar earlier. It was brief, but Houshou-san and Kiso should see that, right?"_

"I…I thought it was a phantom dot…I'm sorry." Kiso whimpered for a second, but the admiral calmed her down.

 _"It's alright, judging how it was very brief, everyone would've thought that it was a phantom blip. I only managed to figure it out just now as well."_ The admiral continued. _"I can confirm though; three ships, bearing two-seven-two. Distance is twelve kilometers. Two are the submarine sisters, the other one is their_ Kou-hyouteki _. They're all cruising in periscope depth but they almost immediately crash dived as they were detected."_

The admiral reported of the three possible ships on their port side twelve kilometers away. It was brief, but the admiral claimed that she saw them surface then dived again to evade detection.

"…that's a pretty accurate description for someone who's not here…" Murasame said in slight suspicion.

 _"W…well, it's an admiral's instinct, let's just say."_

"…suspicious."

 _"F-forget about that. Action stations!"_ the admiral immediately brushed the topic aside. _"You all know what to do, right?"_

"…Do we pursue?" still with confusion in her eyes, Fubuki asked to make sure, but the answer she got was a quick _"Nope."_

 _"Let's see…for now, expand the formation, I'll leave the distance up to you, but basically make more space for evasive maneuvers and expand our search range."_

"Roger that." Ise responded quickly. "Houshou-san, your call?"

"…" Houshou pondered, putting her hand on her chin, before making her call, "Increase the distance until about a kilometer from each other. Not too close for good evasive maneuvers, but not too far for us to cover for each other."

"Understood. I'll change my course accordingly."

"M-me too."

Ise and Haguro responded, while the rest of the ships nodded, looking around to plot an ideal course to get to where they are needed in the formation. With their current cruise speed, it took about a minute for the ships to get into position. By then, a different-sounding blip ring on the admiral's tablet, a sign that the two ships cruising at the right side of the formation had detected something underwater.

"Torpedoes port side, four detected." Haguro reported the four torpedoes approaching from their left. "I suspect those are launched by the _Kou-Hyouteki_."

 _"Good observation. I'll leave evasion to you girls."_ Hearing their commander's tone, the girls could only imagine she was smiling. Haguro who got praised by the admiral even let out a little "yay!" in response. The admiral posed a quite difficult challenge though; to evade the torpedoes slowly swimming towards them. As they are, the torpedoes will be coming into contact to roughly the middle of the formation.

There is the choice of splitting up the formation to open up space in the middle for the torpedo to pass through the gap between the ships, but the whole fleet had been cruising with the top speed of the two slowest ships in the fleet; Ise and Houshou, with their top cruise speed of 25 knots. This means that even if the rear half of the fleet could slow down, the front half could not increase their speed to widen the gap. The two ships behind Ise would be under risk of being hit if they simply split the formation open.

But it's not like they have to follow their formation 100% of the time.

"Split open the formation," the mother ship at the back of the formation spoke. "Fubuki and Kiso should increase their speed to move forward and cruise beside Ise-san. The rest should slow down to fifteen knots."

"""""Understood."""""

 _"Well done."_ Commended the admiral again. Then, as if relaying another command, the admiral continued calmly. _"Incoming aircrafts bearing zero-six-five. Two flights of four and a flight of two. Four D3A dive bombers, four B5N torpedo bombers and two Zeroes."_

"Carrier-based aircrafts, huh?" Ise said, stretching her arms. "I should've loaded more Beehive shell, don't you think, miss Admiral?" she continued and asked while readying her cannons, aiming them towards the general direction of the aircrafts.

 _"Sure, you could have three shells loaded to use one to take care of each flights, but it'll take some time for you to switch to AP in case you'd need it, don't you think?"_ said the commander in reply. _"all units too, be advised, this is the tip of the iceberg that you have to run through in this exercise; look up, but don't forget to look down. Drop your guard for a while and you're basically a submarine, understood?"_

"R-Roger that." Ise gingerly replied, while the rest of the team swallowed their saliva quietly.

 _"Lay out your plans."_ The admiral requested. Like earlier, the admiral would request her fleet's judgment and make adjustments based on it, because she would also train the fleet's decision-making skills this way.

"I-I'll deploy my escort fighter." Haguro said,

"I'll keep my AA-guns toasty." Kiso smirked, her hand still resting on her cutlass.

"Here too. AA-guns, radar and passive sonar are on full alert." Fubuki held her rig's main gun with both hands, and as she did, a clunking sound was heard in her first cannon, probably from stopping abruptly.

"Don't forget to check your depth charge projector, Fubuki-chan." Murasame reminded, while checking her own equipment in her rigs. "I'm ready for anything!" she complements.

"I've my second turret on the aircrafts, the rest of the cannons are aimed at the last position of the submarines." Ise said, aiming the second cannon on her rig towards the air and the rest to the surface.

"There's no reason to deploy dive bombers so I'll keep that for if they approach us…torpedo bombers…I guess that's too risky, the subs can just dive deeper to evade, but…"

It seemed like the girls had reached their conclusions except for Houshou who was still muttering, thinking of her choices. The rest went quiet, as if waiting for their commander's acknowledgement of their plan.

 _"Roger on Haguro, Fubuki and Murasame. Murasame, point your torpedo tubes to two-three-seven. Use the ones with magnetic pistols."_ The commander said, allowing the three ships to execute their plan with minor adjustments. _"Ise, launch your spotter and adjust all except your second cannon to two-three-zero. Distance; eight kilometers. Aim them at the sea surface. Kiso, pay close attention to your scout and report if it sees anything. Houshou-san, deploy torpedo bombers and more Zeroes, flight of four and flight of three. Send your torpedo bombers west, and keep your fighters around."_

"Understood." Ise said before readjusting her cannons. She had questions, of course, but she decided to trust her commander. After her cannons are in position, she reached for her pocket and threw something that immediately combusts, and at the same time, a scout floatplane launched from her rear catapult with the same manner as Houshou's. The mother ship, on the other hand, was rather hesitant for an unknown reason, but she still silently followed her commander's orders and nocked three arrows with the color that corresponds those of her Zeroes.

Because her commander hadn't told her where to send the Zeroes, the mother ship did not bother to aim properly and instead just threw her arrows towards the sky. With her graceful swiftness, she then proceeds to nock four arrows with different-colored fletchings than those of the Zeroes and aimed it west. As she fired, again, the arrows combust into nothing and four B5N torpedo bombers launched from the end of her flight deck, coated in blue flames, before it quickly pulled itself to fly straight up towards the direction Houshou was aiming.

"Aircrafts deployed." She reported. Her commander responded with a _"good"_.

 _"Alright, everyone at the ready; the moment the aircrafts enter Ise's firing range, open fire. I expect them to be here by the time those torpedoes are within 500 meters near us, so it's a pretty small time gap. Houshou-san's Zeroes should immediately engage the enemy bombers; the other ships should take care of the enemy fighters."_ The commander said. One of the ships muttered "… _us_?" but as it was pretty much drowned by the noises of the sea, nobody was sure who said it, if they heard it at all. _"The cue will be Ise's second cannon shot, so I'll leave it to you, Ise."_

"The commander's relying on me…this is exciting." Said Ise, lightly jumping on the tip of her deck. "I won't let you down!"

 _"Good luck, fair seas."_

And then there were silence. The tension was so high that for the shipgirls, only the sound of Houshou's aircrafts and the approaching enemy flights can be heard. They were also bracing themselves not to be shocked by Ise's cannon fire and leave a time gap for the enemy to react. The incoming torpedoes results in repeating blips on the system which gradually increases in frequency, inversely proportional to the closing distance. However, as the fleet are able to completely dodge it by letting it pass through the middle of the formation, nobody paid them any attention.

The enemy aircraft are approaching from their starboard, while the submarines were last spotted in their port. It was a pincer attack from the left and right, and at the same time, from top and bottom.

Suddenly, the commander—not Ise—was the one who started to shout.

 _"Murasame, throw your magnetic torpedoes to two-three seven!"_ she said.

Murasame yelped in shock. She turned herself towards the port side, where the submarines were last spotted, but at the moment, she couldn't see anything, even in her sonar readings. She questioned her commander's decision in her head for a while, but that created a delay of three whole seconds.

 _"Two-three-seven, Murasame! Hurry!"_

"U-understood!"

The torpedo launchers she had were already pointing at her port side, but as she lost concentration while monitoring the aircrafts, she lost her bearings and needed to slightly adjust again. It was six seconds after the order was relayed, that Murasame finally got her four torpedoes from her launcher in the water.

Someone was about to ask the admiral about her actions while there's nothing on the direction of two-three-seven, but Ise's shout afterwards made them swallow their words.

"BEEHIVE SHELL, ON THE WAY!" she shouted, and right after she finished, her second cannon sprouts out two adjacent orange flower accompanied with thick smoke and loud blasts which shockwave blasts the seawater next to Ise.

With that, the engagement begun.

 _"Man, that blasting sound just soothes my soul."_ The admiral muttered almost inaudibly.

An explosion also sounded in the air around the direction of the incoming aircrafts. The beehive shells shot by Ise exploded mid-air like a firework, spreading a mixed splinters of burning steel and incendiary fragments. The fragments successfully hit the enemy aircrafts and ripped one of the bomber's wing off and set a fighter on fire.

 _"All units, engage, engage, engage."_ The admiral commanded. _"Murasame and Kiso, keep an eye for the port side, Houshou-san too send your torpedo bombers to our port!"_

"Understood." Houshou said. She swung her left arm to direct her bomber aircrafts towards the port side of the fleet formation. Then, Houshou noticed that the torpedoes have passed their fleet. "Kiso-san and Fubuki-san, return to your previous position." Ordered the mother ship while swinging her bow and pointing it towards the enemy incoming bombers, ordering her Zeroes to engage.

 _"Be careful with your AA fire, friendly aircraft in the area."_

"Understood." Ise responded, "Should I load more shell, Houshou-san?"

"Please, but don't use it for this air battle; keep it for emergency."

"Rog'."

 _"Good call Houshou-san."_ The admiral said.

Again afterwards, their sonars picked up something; the ocean surface eight kilometers towards the direction of Murasame's torpedo shots shook, and then a large splash burst.

"Two hits! Commander, the torpedoes hit!" Murasame exclaimed, feeling excited.

 _"Good. I thought it was a bit off but actually because of that delay the torpedoes actually reached the target."_ The admiral said. _"No time to waste, Ise, turret one and three, two-three-two, nine kilometers to the sea surface. Fire!"_

"On the way!"

The turret made minor adjustments and it fired twice as loudly as it was before. It took just a little over 10 seconds for the shells to reach its targets, and in the meantime, the crew focused on its anti-aircraft battle as Ise swiftly reloads her cannons.

The shells hit the water; it causes considerably large splashes, but it wasn't a splash of explosion. The girls still question why the commander would throw valuable ammunitions towards most possibly empty waters…but their answer soon came into light.

 _"Got 'em. Submarines detected; they're surfacing."_

As the admiral finished her words, a black object breached the surface of the water, exactly eight kilometers towards the direction of two-three-five. Alongside it, the small girl wearing a school swimsuit and a hull bow-looking helmet also surfaced.

It appears that the submarine had suffered damage to its top side of its hull along with its hangar. The hull only received moderate dent and cracks with several minor rips on some parts, but something had managed to punch through the hangar.

"What the hell was that!? Who shot AP rounds for submarines!? That's not how the game is supposed to work!", the girl seemed to angrily shout in the distance, her voice transmitted with low voice through the radio as she intentionally used the open channel.

"M-miss admiral, don't tell me…" Murasame gasped, bringing her palm to her mouth.

"…she just completely predicted where Iyo would go and told us to shoot her?" Ise continued what Murasame left off, her face was looking towards the submarine Iyo's direction with a look of utter disbelief.

"No way! It's definitely pure luck!" Kiso cried while still busy controlling her anti-air guns.

 _"It was not luck,"_ their commander soon answered with a low tone for some reason, _"…but skill."_ It sounded like she grinned like a certain archer lady riding an oversized cat.

The commander laughed.

 _"I kind of predicted where those two would go and told Murasame to shoot magnetic torpedoes. It exploded just right above Iyo, ruining her ballast tank and forcing her to surface, and just on the way to surface, her hangar got hit by Ise's non-explosive but Armor-Penetrating shells."_ She said proudly. The girls could imagine that she was puffing her unnecessarily large chest. _"I noticed how those two turned their hulls port side after they launched their torpedoes, and with a bit of calculation and luck, you girls hit your shots."_

"So in the end, luck played part in it too!" cried Fubuki amidst the roaring sounds of the anti-air guns, slightly disappointed.

 _"Anyways, focus on the battle on your part!"_ the admiral shouted again, this time a bit more tense, and all of a sudden,

"AH!" An explosion bursts on Kiso's port-side hull, its force was quite enough to make her ship list towards the starboard side although ever-so-slightly. As the smoke dispersed, Kiso's hull revealed a large dent. Kiso herself stumbled on top of her deck, a part of her sailor uniform on her left flank seemed like it was just lightly burnt.

 _"Damage report!"_ the admiral exclaimed, slightly panicked.

"Just a scratch, admiral. Iyo tossed some HE shells this way." Kiso responded quickly.

"Fubuki-san, please move closer to Kiso to assist her with anti-air!" Houshou managed to follow up quickly while still focusing to keep an eye out for her fighters to manage them.

"Copy that!" Fubuki said before quickly turning towards Kiso with her superior speed.

"Should I go too?" Ise asked, closing the chamber for the second gun turret after reloading it with Beehive shells.

 _"Ise, maintain course,"_ the commander said opposing the mother ship's instruction. _"if too much ships get close to Kiso you'll be an easy target."_

"Understood," said Ise, responding.

"Kiso-san, you're in charge to take care of the submarines. We shall take care of this side." The mother ship shouted.

 _"Dive bombers, incoming!_ " With the admiral's bellowing, the girls who were paying attention to the sky noticed the targets of the admiral's attention. Three enemy dive bombers approached the last ship in the formation; Houshou. As quickly as she could react, Houshou swung her arms as if desperately manipulating her Zeroes in the sky to intercept the dive bombers.

Without instructions, the two ships in front of Houshou turned; not as much as turning a whole 180 into the opposite direction, but they slowed down and closed in on Houshou's position, which easily increases the effectiveness of the anti-air fire.

The dive bombers moved in to its attack position and quickly dived before releasing their payloads. Thankfully due to the intensity of the anti-air fire, the dive bombers were distracted; three bombs spliced Houshou's flight deck and exploded on the water right next to her. Two exploded on her starboard side and another one five hundred meters to her port side, the fourth bomber seemed like it was out of its ideal position so it didn't release its payload. The explosion, however, was quite powerful as its waves shook the whole aircraft carrier's structure.

 _"Fucking hell!"_ the commander cursed. The bombers waved off, slicing the air about ten meters above Houshou before pulling up. Three seconds later, Houshou's Zeroes that had been tailing the bombers passed through. The shockwaves from the aircrafts shook the air as Houshou ducked down to avoid being knocked out by the strong wind. _"Two torpedoes incoming from zero-six-seven! Evasive maneuvers!"_

"What!?"

The girls were too busy protecting the carrier that they forgot something; their enemies aren't only composed of dive bombers. There were still three torpedo bombers who had the freedom of taking favorable position to release their torpedoes.

 _"Haguro, Murasame, flank speed ahead! Houshou-san, full reverse!"_ the admiral bellowed from the radio. Immediately afterwards, the three ships' engine roared, although Fubuki and Haguro sped up while Houshou quickly slowed down.

"One of the torpedoes can still hit Houshou-san's fore hull even if she stops—!"

"Leave me, Murasame-san!" Houshou cut her short. "Only one of them will hit, the rest will pass through!"

As they kept speaking, the torpedoes which are closer than anyone would have expected drew even closer; as Houshou finished her comment, the torpedoes are about one kilometer away from her.

"Save it!" Suddenly Haguro cut in. She _did_ increase her speed into her true maximum speed, though she turned hard to her starboard, making a full 180°. She revolved to Houshou's front slightly to her right while facing her almost face to face. Given how hard she was turning, the centrifugal force inevitably tilted her to the left slightly. "Please just let me make it!"

Haguro arrived right to Houshou's port side, and a heavy, muffled explosion followed with massive seawater eruption sounded on the cruiser's left hull, while Haguro herself stumbled as if she was just punched on her left shoulder.

* * *

 _Author's Note: "Rog'" is an abbreviation for "Roger"._

 _Number-based direction is called bearings, which is a number of degrees clockwise with direct front being zero or 360 degrees. It's read in three digits, number by number, so for example your direct right is pronounced zero-nine-zero and direct left is pronounced two-seven-zero._


	11. Losses and Gains

_"Haguro! Damage report!"_

The admiral was the first to recover from the shock, and immediately shouted to the radio as Haguro's ship steadily come to a stop just slightly behind Houshou's reversing ship.

"I'm fine!" said Haguro before choking. The massive splash of water had slightly wet her entire outer body. It didn't seem bad, but it seemed like it's only a matter of time before the seawater seeped into her uniform and drenched her completely. "The blast ripped bulkhead compartment six and eight, but the other bulkheads are already sealed!" she said, rubbing her shoulder that was "hit".

The rule of the training is as follows; ships that are considered heavily damaged must raise their hand (which will in turn deploy a white flag on the ship) and transmit through the public channel that they're out of the fight. At the moment, the admiral looked into Haguro's condition through her tablet, and with the information she obtained from it, she judged her as _moderately damaged_.

"I'll come back there to provide support!" Murasame's voice echoed through the radio as well, and in the distance, the destroyer also made hard turn to its port side and approached the two ships.

 _"Haguro, can you move?"_ the admiral asked. She knows the extent of the damage, but she wasn't sure if Haguro can still operate.

"The boilers are still on, I can still fight, Admiral!" Haguro beckoned back with a vaguely pained tone. As water slowly floods her damaged part, her whole ship started listing slowly to her starboard side.

 _"Good, take your time and make the best of damage control. Houshou-san and Fubuki should stay near her for anti-air while Haguro concentrates on resolving her flooding. The rest of the fleet are to decrease speed to Ise's quarter speed."_ the admiral said strictly with a faint hint of worry. She fully knows that this is merely training, but due to how the system works, her subordinates can still feel pained and damaged throughout the mock battle. In response to her worried tone, the girls in the ships aside from Haguro gave an encouraging answer saying "Understood". _"Haguro, if all else possible, turn back and line up your position back to the fleet's formation, okay?"_

"U-understood. I'm sorry for the trouble." Haguro said with her unique almost-crying tone, and the admiral calmed her down saying _"no rush."_

Haguro's engine exerts a thrust again as Houshou could hear it rumble and Haguro's smokestacks starts spewing out thicker and larger amounts of dark smokes. The damage in her hull caused her to lose effective speed, so despite her best efforts, even getting to her half speed took a lot of energy. With her low speed, she turned to her starboard side to once again face forward respective to the fleet's initial direction. Houshou herself also shifted gear from reversing. She briefly stopped from her reverse speed before gradually increasing her speed to half its maximum speed.

After one and a half minutes, Haguro is back in position; only this time, she could only muster her speed slightly above Houshou's maximum speed.

The sky is eerily clear. The earlier bombers and fighters had waved off, back to their carrier as they have expended their payload, and although none but one torpedo managed to hit, in a naval battle, that's just about all you need. Also, even though the sky is clear and there is only one visible enemy submarine who lost its stealth functionality, the atmosphere was tense. There is one damaged ship in the fleet; further damage will take her out from the fight. At the same time, the admiral believes that the moment one had to protect someone else is the time they are most vulnerable; the fleets might focus too much on protecting the damaged ally rather than focusing on their offense.

 _"Kiso, report in."_ the admiral said curtly.

"Iyo is still surfaced and kept throwing HE with barely any efforts in accurately hitting us. I've been trying to hit her back" The torpedo cruiser reported, "The scout planes haven't found anything as well.

The admiral pondered for a bit as she assessed the current situation. The enemy submarine Iyo is also considered moderately damaged, although she's more in a loss because she lost her stealth function while Haguro arguably only lost her speed. The Hammerhead fleet still had whole flight of torpedo bombers to their west, standing by. Houshou's Zeroes that disengaged from trying to pursuit the torpedo and dive bombers had just returned to the sky above the fleet with one casualty and three other receiving minor damage, which ensures that the fleet still had a reliable form of aerial defense.

 _"Be advised, Hitomi might still be in the area; it's weird seeing how there's Iyo but her sister's nowhere to be found—."_

Just as the admiral finished her words, Murasame exclaimed;

"Torpedoes starboard side, direction two-one-nine! They're heading for the rear ships, towards Houshou-san!"

 _"—Dammit!"_ the admiral cursed, thinking she just jinxed herself. The torpedoes that were approaching was 2 kilometers away, and if the girls maintained their current course, one of them will hit Houshou right in the broadside.

Now, there were no ships that could protect Houshou. Fubuki was still close to Haguro to provide crutches and anti-air protection. The only choice they had was to dodge, but again, Haguro was right next to Houshou; if she moved out of the way, Haguro will be completely out of the fight.

 _"Houshou-san, use your torpedo bombers to keep the two sisters busy. Send one to throw a torpedo to Iyo, the others are to wait for Hitomi."_ The admiral exclaimed. _"And…load HE and aim all your portside cannons toward the surface in two-six-nine, the direction of the torpedo, five hundred meters."_

"M…Miss admiral, what should we do about the torpedo?!" Ise panicked in the front. She had nothing to do. In no way she thought that any of those is a measure to defend oneself from torpedoes.

 _"I guess you can do it too. Ise, load HE on turret six, aim at the exact coordinate Houshou is aiming at. You got the coordinates, right?"_

"Y-yes, but…that's within five hundred meters of Houshou-san!"

 _"No other choice, just…trust me, finger on the trigger, and wait for my cue!"_

The admiral didn't have the time to explain, the girls thought, so they could only obey her command and wait.

With faint splashes of water, the torpedo approached swiftly. The girls were tense as they waited for their commander's orders.

 _"If anyone hums the Jaws theme song, they're getting kicked."_ It seemed like the commander tried to break the intenseness of the situation, but the reply she received was a tasteless _um…_

Right when the torpedo reached about 650 meters away from the mother ship, the commander bellowed.

 _"Ise! FIRE!"_

"ON THE WAY! DANGER CLOSE!"

As Ise's voice rips through the intercom, her rear cannon follows.

 _"Houshou! FIRE!"_

"ON THE WAY!"

Again, after the mother ship's shout, her smaller caliber secondary cannons shot out highly explosive shells from Houshou's port side.

Houshou's shells arrived first, creating an explosion in the water, and after almost exactly one second later, Ise's shell exploded on the point…before an even more massive explosion erupted from the water.

"Ah!" Houshou yelped as the explosion was almost too close for comfort.

 _"You got it!"_ exclaimed the admiral with a chuckle, _"you shot down the torpedo!"_

"…Eh?"

"D…did you just tell us to shoot the torpedoes?"

 _"I saw it from an anime one time, so I thought we could try that."_

Question marks popped out above the girls' head as they were told to aim, but now, their face once again was filled with a mix of admiration and shock. Some of them could only silently open and close their mouths, not sure of what to say, but someone else in the other fleet knows what she had to say;

 _"THAT'S NOT HOW THE GAME WORKSSSS!"_

From the other side of the sea, Iyo shouted again while shooting her cannons.

 _"Alright, enough goofing around; we're going on the offense!"_ the admiral's tone changed. She was cheerful before when she noticed that her trick worked, but now she sounded extremely serious. _"Girls, turn to two-seven-nine! We're pushing on the submarines! All units, hard to port!"_

""""""Understood!""""""

The engine of the six ships rumbled in resonance with each other, making them sound louder that it almost drowned out the voice of the waves and the ships' hulls splitting through the sea.

Ise, having an increased eyesight from her spotter planes, faced towards the enemy fleet's Iyo, while pointing her guns at her. Seeing the change of course from the Hammerhead fleet, Iyo jumped in shock with a _"yeek!"_ before seemingly trying to change her course.

 _"Destroyers, run forward. Hit and run, got it?"_

"Copy that!"

"On my way!"

Fubuki who was behind just by Haguro's side put her boiler's power to its maximum and chased after Murasame in the front line in flank speed. Soon after she reached her fellow destroyer, she lowered her speed to full cruise speed and approached the surfaced submarine who continuously panics.

"Submarine detected, my three-zero-one. Pursuing now!" Fubuki reported, steadying her guns. She was aiming at Iyo, but she started turning her torpedoes for her submerged sister.

 _"The rest of the crew, provide covering fire for the destroyers; keep Iyo busy while the two deal with Hitomi."_

"Copy. I'll give support fire, danger close. Take care, Fubuki, Murasame."

"Leave it to us!"

"Just focus on hitting the target, Ise-san!"

Ise scoffed, almost as if she was about to say "don't underestimate me".

Murasame and Fubuki split up their formation, Fubuki went to the left while Murasame turned right, making a huge circle around the suspected location of the submerged vessel. They approached the submarine from the front, but now that they circled around her, the submarine needs to turn and face them to engage while the two destroyers could engage in a one-sided torpedo battle.

However, although they have the torpedo advantage, the two destroyers chose not to, which is a sound decision. Stray torpedoes that did not hit enemy vessels could hit other ships, including friendly ships, especially when the two are facing each other side by side.

"Launching depth charge! Fire in the hole!"

So they chose to lob the enemy with depth charges.

Fubuki and Murasame both took a grenade-sized tube from their belts, armed it by slamming its base with their hands and threw it towards the area between them. As the tubes left their hands, small, gas-like explosion sound rang from the decks of the destroyers, launching depth charges almost five times the size of the tubes they threw.

"Whoa!" Just as the depth charges entered the water, a shell whistles past Murasame about ten meters in front of her body. It was another high explosive shell from Iyo.

But her attack didn't go unpunished. Before Iyo managed to reload her cannons, four torpedoes already crept up to her vessel. Two eruptions follow; a muffled explosion underwater signaling one torpedo hit, another explosion on the base of Iyo's hangar, as well as three other splashes of water around Iyo

"One hit!" Ise relayed through her radio.

"One hit."

The four torpedoes were launched by Houshou's torpedo bombers while Ise shot Iyo with two of her six massive cannons, and the result is one solid hit from each. Ise's shots were those of HE shells, creating a bigger explosion compared to those of AP shells.

Fire erupted in Iyo's hangar, and Iyo lays sprawled on top of her submarine, coughing.

" _cough…I'm heavily damaged, I'm out!"_

"We got one!"

The hammerhead fleet cheered; they managed to take one of the six ships out of the battle, but the battle is far from over.

"OW!" Another explosion erupted. It was an underwater eruption from the location the girls threw their depth charges into.

 _A radio crack sounded. "I-I'm out…my ballast tank had been torn and hangar is completely non-operational…"_ It was the voice of Hitomi, down from under the sea. The explosions from the depth charge rendered her heavily damaged and unsuited for further combat.

But this time, the fleet could not cheer.

As Hitomi's transmission closed, the fleet noticed that Fubuki's deck was set on fire.

The explosion of the depth charge drowned the sound of two explosions that flared on Fubuki's deck and simultaneously set her on fire.

The six girls stared at Fubuki's deck, their eyes bathed in violent light of the firestorm.

 _"Damage report!"_ just as shocked as the rest of the fleet, the admiral asked in a clear panic.

"T…Torpedo tube two, four, and gun turret two is out; one anti-air gun is unusable; boiler engine one is heavily damaged, and boiler two is completely out of commission!" Cried Fubuki. As her deck was on fire, her physical body also felt the heat as a feedback. Some part of her school uniform seemed like it's gone from the fire while bits of embers remained in other parts, including her near-burnt skin.

 _"Damn it…for now, apply damage control! Douse the flames, see if you can move with the rest of your propulsion system!"_ the admiral exclaimed. Her voice made her sound like she was either angry, panicked, or both.

Also, she spoke of damage control party like a bandage; not because it's a metaphor, but it's how the ships control the damage they took.

While holding the burnt part on her flank, Fubuki wiped the sweat flowing down her cheek as well as the flame dust plastered on it. After thus, she opened one of the two red pouches strapped to her rig, and from within, she pulled out what looked like a pain relief spray; those that athletes use to relieve their pain if they twist their ankle.

She sprayed the gas spray towards the area that was burnt in her body, and at the same time, white smokes spew from the areas around the fire. Second by second passes, and the flame gradually weakened. After dousing the flame, Fubuki swiftly moved on to the next procedure of quick repair, but unfortunately, the damage control couldn't fix heavily damaged equipment or parts. Fubuki's second turret, torpedo tubes two and four, one anti-air gun and her first boiler is out of commission for this battle.

Ridiculously loud clacking sound and sounds that one doesn't ever want to hear from a turbine rumbled as Fubuki did a quick system check to see if her propulsion still works, and seeing how the smokestacks continue spewing out coal smoke, albeit almost like it's coughing, the propulsion system still worked.

But they do not have a time to catch their breaths.

Approaching the almost-incapacitated destroyer, an ominous rumbling sound approaches from the far East.

"E…Enemy squadron detected! It's…a colossal formation of 56 aircrafts!" Murasame yelled just a she stopped right by Fubuki to provide protection.

"…Not only that…the rest of their ships…Unryuu, Taigei and Furutaka…they're all directly in front of us!" Ise complemented.

 _"…Shit."_ The commander's curse is justified, as they are currently facing the greatest threat. It seemed like the enemy team chose to deploy literally every single one of their aircrafts and attack the Hammerhead Fleet head-on. The sky is swarming with small aircrafts that gradually grow larger as the distance closes in. it was a reckless strategy, the commander thought; they expended all of their available aircrafts for one all-out attack, but that results in them only having one chance of attack. If they failed, on the other hand, they will have no one but Furutaka who could possess a capable threat.

However, this type of attack would probably be the best course of action to take against the ill-defended Hammerhead fleet. Houshou, at most, had 15 planes, and not all of them are fighter aircrafts to intercept the massive fighter and bomber formation that inches in to their location rapidly. Haguro might have an escort fighter plane docked on her catapult, but one pseudo-fighter is ill-suited to fight against a whole air squadron. Their anti-air guns are one part to boast, but as they have to run and dodge incoming torpedoes and bombs, at least two of the Hammerhead's ships would have fatal problems as they were considerably damaged.

 _"…Ise, reload all cannons to Beehive Shells. I know you have just about 12 more rounds, so make it count._ " The commander started to mutter her command, while sounding like she was biting on something in frustration. _"The rest of the fleet…disperse. I know it'll decrease your anti-air intensity, but if you keep grouping up, like I said, you're going to be an easy target."_

"B-but miss Admiral, what about the enemy ships?" Ise asked, just as panicked as her commander.

 _"They're the least of our problems right now, so if possible, only use your secondary cannons for them."_ , the commander said again. _"Houshou-san, sorry but please deploy whatever the remaining fighters that you have. Return all of the rest, make sure they're refueled and rearmed. Ise and Kiso too, return all of your scout or spotting planes. Maybe we'll get another chance to re-deploy them after the anti-aircraft stage is over."_

"…Understood." Houshou replied, while Ise and the rest of the crew could only cast their gaze down in nervousness and swallow their saliva.

Ise opened up all of her cannons silently with the accompaniment of loud clunking sounds multiplied by the number of her main cannons in her ship, attempting to reload all turrets with the beehive shells just like her commander instructed.

Houshou waved her hands in the air to instruct her Zeroes and torpedo bombers to return immediately as they do not have much time to waste. Her planes swiftly lined up behind her ship and landed before combusting into flames and disappearing. In turn, arrows the amount of the landed aircraft's appeared in Houshou's quiver. Ise's aircraft also swiftly landed on the water and stopped right beside Ise's aft. Ise continued and retrieved the spotter aircraft with her crane, which then, like Houshou's, combusts into blue flame and reappeared on her aircraft deck. Kiso's aircraft might take a little longer as it had gone far on an arguably failed scouting mission.

The fleet, however, was nervous as to what the admiral might say next, and after a while, she relayed her order.

 _"Fubuki,"_ said the commander, hesitation looming in her voice, _"sorry, but you're out of the fight…Raise your white flag and retreat."_ Her words came down like a death sentence

Fubuki's chest stings, and her face twisted accordingly. It felt like she could cry at any second, and the girls felt like she had something to say; something that could prove to her commander that she could still fight and let her do so…but alas, there was nothing she could say. Almost unable to move and her armaments wrecked, her condition embarrassed her so much that even the word "but" got caught on her throat, not even rolling to her tongue.

Retreat order was the most painful word that the commander could've said; even ranking second in the "Words I Don't Want to Hear from the Commander" list, right below "you're useless", which she practically never said. Needless to say, the morale of the girls dropped considerably just from Fubuki's retreat order.

But Fubuki doesn't want to create any more, much less drag their whole team down with a duty to protect a heavily damaged ship that can't even properly serve as a stationary gun.

So she slowly raised her right arm, switched the channel of her radio and spoke through the open channel.

"…I'm out of the fight." Fubuki uttered dejectedly, and with the rise of her arm, a white flag popped up on her superstructure.

 _"All other units, prepare defensive anti-air formation, spread out as far as possible, but close enough to cover for each other. Set a course towards their formation, we'll try to take them head-on."_

With their commander's order, the girls of the hammerhead fleet shook their heads and focus back on the current matters.

Almost simultaneously, the anti-air guns of the five remaining ships clanked as it reloads its magazines to its full capacity as the ships moved away from each other. Kiso's aircraft that also returned was hoisted and replaced back to the catapult, awaiting further orders. After all of their preparations are complete, what's left to do is to wait until the enemy aircrafts enter their firing range, and that means they have to wait for Ise's cue again.

And soon, they arrived.

"Beehive shell…" Ise muttered, gritting her hands while glaring holes on the incoming aircrafts. "ON THE WAY!"

Two simultaneous flashes flared from Ise's first gun turret. Almost as if shooting a firework, the shell soon explodes into pretty, yet deadly shrapnel. Due to the close-knit formation, just two shells shot by one of Ise's main cannon ripped five of the enemy aircrafts apart.

But like a group of swarming insects scared of sudden flare of fire, the planes scattered and start to individually attempted to enter their attack position.

The earlier attack from Unryuu's aircrafts were barely the tip of the iceberg. The fleet, at the current moment, had to deal with almost literally five times the previous amount of aircrafts.

Almost immediately after, the battle begins. The Zeroes started directly strafing the five ships, aiming to take out their smaller-caliber anti-air gun as well as making enough distraction for their bombers to get in position and lay out a solid attack.

The quiet sea only accompanied with the rumbling of the aircraft engines suddenly turned noisy. Anti-air guns firing, shells ejecting, aircrafts exploding into smithereens; the situation is the complete opposite of how it was.

"Furutaka incoming, dead ahead—ow!" Ise reported. She released her second cannon's load towards a group of torpedo bombers taking position at the far side, while she received a shot from an aircraft gun trying to get her attention from close by. One of her shells missed but the other exploded right in front of the bombers, taking two of them down. Her call for Furutaka was not, however, a request for support, but it was merely a callout for other team members to pay attention to, because at the current condition, every ship is to herself so that they do not risk each other.

 _"Houshou-san, torpedoes, three-zero-one."_

"Roger, I'll evade to port."

It might be weird to face right into the incoming torpedoes, but Houshou tried to turn to it so that she does not expose her broadside and lower the chance for her to get struck by the torpedoes and from the list of the current combatant.

"Gah! You little pieces of—!" Kiso received a bomb right at her aft. Thankfully it did not hit and damage any of her important modules, and the five other bombs sent after her at the same time missed and merely created splashes of water around her.

Other torpedoes were also launched by the planes, but other than pinpoint attacks that are easily dodged by Houshou and the other ships, none was really aimed, or even armed properly.

The commander took a note to check Unryuu later to make sure this doesn't happen in real combat.

"Urk…catapult damaged, it's unusable!" another explosion sounded; this time, an HE bomb burst on the center of Haguro's deck, severely damaging her crane and seaplane catapult.

But the dive bombers seemed to soon prove to be a challenge for the fleet. Unlike the torpedo bombers, their trajectories aren't that predictable, and especially because they are flying close to the ships, it could be difficult to spot them maneuvering to release their payloads. Even more so because the dive bombers gained the least attention as the ships were too focused to try and repel the annoying fighters and the possibly most damaging torpedo bombers, the dive bombers could almost freely drop their bombs with quite the precision. They had scored two solid hits on both the Hammerhead fleet's cruisers, albeit non-fatals, and the rest of their attacks has been dangerous near-misses.

"Tch…two HE hits; flight deck is slightly damaged." Houshou relayed her damage report. Two cracks as well as black smudges from the explosion appeared on both her flight deck and her flight deck rig attached to her left arm. The countless rain of bullets sent to her by Unryuu's fighters also created lots of fist-sized holes on her wooden flight deck that could compromise her whole structure in the long run.

Slowly but steadily, the number of the aircrafts in the air decreases, either because they either had been destroyed or they had expended their payload and they had to return to their mother ship, and for the fleet, the return time is the key for them to start striking back.

But Unryuu did not seem to present them the chance; the planes—especially the dive bombers—came in two major waves. The second wave mostly covered the aircrafts of the first wave to retreat back to refuel and rearm…at least they kept the Hammerhead fleet busy to not pursue the first wave back to the carrier.

As a dive bomber made a pass, something crashed into Ise's aft. "Oof!" she cried, but no explosions erupted

"…what the—!?" she said in confusion, but before she finished her sentence, her entire aft erupted.

The bomb looked like a dud from its delayed fuse; Ise thought it was a bomb that could not explode, but instead, it was an armor-piercing bomb that penetrated her aircraft-launching facility and exploded right inside her hull. Ise's rear part of the rig followed suit and exploded as a feedback, bringing Ise down to her knees.

 _"All units be advised; the second wave of aircrafts are comprised of dive bombers carrying Mark 5 bombs…they're armor piercing bombs. Focus on them before the others!"_ the admiral exclaimed right after assessing the damage done to Ise.

" _cough_ , sorry commander. My aircraft facilities are demolished…"

 _"Don't worry about it. Keep focusing and you'll be fine."_

The commander attempted to keep her calm despite sounding slightly nervous and impatient.

Ise nodded to herself with a glint of determination; she stood up and straightened her posture again. She then started to scan the sky again and aimed up to the sky with her fifth and sixth cannon; the only cannons with the remaining beehive shells.

 _"Houshou-san, bombers incoming!"_

"Y…yes!"

Three of Unryuu's dive bombers approached Houshou from high altitude, and as the mother ship detected them, she immediately diverted her Zeroes fighting in the sky to put them down before they released their payload.

But those bombers do not have any bombs under their fuselage.

"…What?"

The bombers waved off after their dive, firing their guns with little to no damage to the deck, but their suspected attack did not come…or so they thought.

"AH!"

Three bombs approached the mother ship's deck in terminal velocity; two pierced her deck and another one grazed her side. Explosions follow half a second later, and Houshou was knocked off her feet, feeling an intense force from her rig.

 _"Ach…well played…well fucking played."_ The admiral sounded irritated this time, but also said it with a hint of admiration.

"F…Flight deck damaged…" Houshou reported, out of breath. "Elevator number 1 is also out of commission…I cannot deploy any more fighters…!"

 _"Oh сука…"_ the admiral cursed again, somehow this time in Russian. _"Houshou-san, bring your remaining aircrafts around other ships for further protection. We can't let them take out our fighters!"_

"Un- _cough_ -understood!" trying to hold the pain around her left torso, she placed her right hand slightly above her breast, all the while using her other free hand to direct her fighters to fly nearby friendly ships and rely on their anti-air fire for further protection.

"Murasame! You're about to enter Furutaka's firing range!"

"Oh what? AAAAHH!"

After looking above for what feels like forever, the fleet now realize that they are almost very close to the other fleet's three ships; so close that Furutaka had just slightly missed her full broadside fire on Murasame.

It was a mix of luck and Furutaka's miscalculation that results in her missing her entire cannon fire, but everybody knows that there will be no second time.

Meanwhile reloading her cannons, Furutaka swiftly took her chance and sent torpedoes toward Murasame; not so much with the intention to hit her, but only to disrupt her movement to allow her to line up her next shots.

Of course, none of the hammerhead fleet's member are going to let that happen.

Kiso dropped her focus from the aircrafts and aimed her guns at Furutaka, but in her haste, her aim wasn't perfect; she missed three out of four shots of her cannons that she could point at Furutaka, and the only shot that landed was that of HE shell that could not penetrate Furutaka's thick armor. Her sudden loss of concentration also did not go unpunished; through the gap of her anti-air defense, several dive bombers slipped through and released their payloads. None of them scored a hit, but it changed Kiso's course dramatically as she attempted to dodge the bombs at the last second.

Just as Kiso's shots hit, Furutaka had already finished reloading. Murasame grit her teeth to brace for the impact from her shots, but it turned out Furutaka had another idea.

She was aiming at Murasame when she finished, but with quick and delicate movement, she switched her aim towards Kiso who just changed her course, and her turrets quickly followed to aim where Furutaka's rig was pointing at;

Kiso's citadel.

 _"KISO!"_ The admiral yelled her lungs out, but it was too late.

Flashes of orange and thick flaming smoke burst from Furutaka's cannons and six 203mm armor-penetrating shells flew out of the barrels with the speed of over twice the speed of sound and seemingly home into the center-lower part of Kiso's broadside,

And thus, a gigantic flaming ball of burning Chrysanthemums bloomed on the sea surface.


	12. The Maelstrom

Sunset.

Its dazzling orange seemed to match the fire dancing on what's left of Kiso.

It was beyond just a critical hit.

Three of the six armor-penetrating shells punched through Kiso's belt armor and exploded directly in her magazine compartment. Her massive explosion ripped her whole ship structure in two, and the remaining ammunition she had inside her magazine exploded one by one, sending random shells around her that almost hit her teammates, especially Fubuki who was calmly retreating from the fight.

Kiso laid unconscious, hanging from the prow of her ship like a wrung-out rag. With an uncanny bellowing of possibly massive steels rubbing against each other, Kiso's hulls that snapped right in the middle looked like they rose and stood, before slowly sinking into the deep blue ocean.

But still, the aircrafts Unryuu sent still did not stop coming, and the large ships of the enemy fleet is still an imminent danger. The Hammerhead fleet did not have time to even stop by and take care of their loss.

 _"Fubuki, escort Kiso to safety and restore her at the base! The rest of you, stay vigilant, the enemy's still up on us!"_ , yelled the Admiral, and as she just mentioned, multiple projectiles are aimed towards their ships; _"Houshou-san, Haguro, torpedoes from two-three one and zero-nine-one."_

"Kh…" Haguro grit her teeth, "Where are they all coming from?!"

Haguro's concern came to light; there weren't many torpedo bombers in the area as Ise and Haguro managed to take down most of them. One torpedo salvo might be justified, but two at once?

"…I feel like we're missing something." Murasame muttered, maneuvering to temporarily exit Furutaka's firing range. For a second she saw the remains of Kiso, but she could only grit her hand in frustration and continue sailing.

"…For now, I'm going forward to provide protection for the frontlines."

 _"Wait, Haguro—!"_ The admiral was about to stop her, Haguro already put her pedal to the metal and darted off from Houshou's side and approached Murasame's direction. Her action automatically ruined the prediction of the incoming torpedoes' direction, so she didn't pay it any mind.

 _"Dammit,"_ in response to Haguro's action, the admiral cursed before she could relay her next order. _"Ise, cruise in front of Houshou to provide protection for her."_

"U-understood!" Ise replied, and she immediately reduced her cruise speed without putting off her attention from the incoming enemy fleet.

"Murasame was right. Something's missing." Houshou followed, just barely dodging another bomb.

 _"But it's not like we're missing something._ They _are—!"_

As the commander continued, Houshou's aft exploded and Houshou felt a massive sting on her legs, as if she had been struck by a wooden plank.

"Ugh…rudder is damaged…I can't turn properly!" cried Houshou enduring her pain.

"H-Houshou-san…!"

From the front side of the fleet formation, Haguro who ran up to Murasame for her protection, Haguro screamed. Houshou was shot by an AP shell right in the hull of her aft, moderately damaging her rudder, but it was enough to cripple her maneuvering.

 _"Houshou-san, quickly send the repair team down there to repair the rudder!"_ the admiral bellowed from wherever she is.

"Uu…Understood…!" Houshou replied while moaning in pain. She quickly took out a salve from a compartment underneath the flight deck rig and applied it on her lower back in an attempt to appease the pain and repair her rudder. "It's Shigure! We've forgot about her the whole time! She's behind our fleet now!"

Shigure has always been lacking in presence. Not only in this battle, but even in the home port, other people but the admiral, Houshou, and a handful of other ships and staffs, had problems noticing her presence. She was of course bothered by it, but the admiral praised her. So instead of complaining about it, she made full use of it, sneaking up upon the enemy fleet and attempting to surprise them with torpedoes and her incredibly accurate hits towards the enemy's weak points.

"H-Houshou-san, I'm sorry, because I left you…"

"It's…alright, focus on the battle."

With Kiso gone, the only combatant that could take on Shigure was Haguro, but she had already gone forward to assist the destroyer Murasame, leaving Houshou behind by herself. It was a mistake, everyone thought, which explains the admiral's frustration earlier as Haguro darted forward.

"Haguro, quickly return and protect Houshou-san!" Ise yelled. "at most I can drive her off from this range, but my secondary cannons can't even reach her!"

"U-U-Understood! I'm sorry everyone!"

With an apology, Haguro reduced her speed to improve her turn rate. Ise wordlessly moved forward, attempting to switch places with Haguro to cover their front.

 _"Ise, try disabling their carrier. Set her flight deck ablaze so she can't send more aircrafts. We can't take any more than this!"_

"Okay!" Ise responded in a flash, all the while she rotated her first and second turret towards her front. After rotating them, she quickly topped off her chambers and replaced the rounds into high explosive shells. At that point, she even thought that maybe keeping one or two beehive shells might be useful in setting Unryuu on fire due to its incendiary property, but she had already expended them for taking down the enemy aircrafts.

 _"I have a bad feeling…"_ the commander muttered. _"Houshou-san, can you deploy all of your remaining aircrafts?"_

"Eh? Wouldn't it be dangerous, miss Admiral? The enemy aircrafts are still in the air…"

 _"I know, so please keep them flying low and within our range of anti-aircraft fire."_

The mother ship was still unsure of her commander's decision, but choosing to believe the admiral, Houshou eventually pulled the remainder of her arrows from her quiver after healing the pain from her legs. It was still painful, but she understood that her rudders and legs are still properly functional.

As her planes launched, it didn't immediately pull up like the several planes she launched earlier, and it flied straight with the height of the fleet members' hull. Logically speaking, no one with rational minds would dive to pursue enemies that are that close into a fully aware anti-air guns.

But still, the ships are still vulnerable from attacks similar to earlier,

High-altitude dive bombing.

Normally it would not be possible for normal human beings to dive down in high speed and pull their crafts up and get away with it. The amount of G-force that the human body would have to withstand would render them unconscious, blacking out as the force drained blood from their brains.

But that rule did not apply to the physics-bending nature of the shipgirls' equipment and the superhuman qualities possessed by the pilot fairies. They can freely attempt to maneuver their aircrafts as much as their aircraft can endure and not limited by the endurance of their pilots. Therefore, such inhumane maneuvers are possible.

Of course, it is a move that anyone could've used; Houshou could also have used her own aircrafts to engage in such attacks, but they had to keep in mind that the fleet was on the defensive since the very beginning of the battle. They started off having to be cautious of the two submarine sisters, and just as they gained the upper hand, Unryuu decided to unleash her entire arsenal and swarmed the hammerhead fleet like bees finding a stash of sweet nectars. Furthermore, the fleet kept being pushed back as even the uncoordinated and inaccurate attacks of Unryuu's aircrafts managed to give bits of damages, and even led to the catastrophic sinking of Kiso. The hammerhead fleet failed to find opportunities to push forward and take on the initiative and steer the tide of battle in their favor.

Even at the moment, they are still being pushed by the Mako fleet with Shigure tailing right behind Houshou. Shigure is now still able to send some rounds into Houshou's aft attempting to once again cripple her movement by ruining her rudders or destroying the propellers. In the opposite end, the spearhead of the fleet was Murasame, who was busy dodging Furutaka's shells without much trouble dodging the bombs because it seemed like Unryuu understood that she'll leave it to Furutaka to suppress the last running destroyer of the Hammerhead fleet.

It took a whole three minutes for Haguro and Ise to completely switch place, and Houshou as well as Murasame already grazed about five shells each.

 _"Next time do it under 1 minute. It gets too dangerous if you take longer. We also have aircrafts incoming, but Houshou-san could take care of them."_

"U…understood. I'm sorry…!" Haguro stuttered as she finally reached a position to support Houshou right from her starboard side. As Shigure was randomly flinging shots at Houshou's direction, one of them missed and hit Haguro's hull. As it was a stray projectile, it hit her armor in a weird angle, causing the shot to bounce off and spun as it was flung into the sea.

Now that Haguro cruises alongside Houshou, Haguro is now able to utilize her two rear cannons to scare off Shigure off. Haguro aimed her cannons and without a concentrated effort and released four High Explosive shells towards Shigure. With her eyes squinting, Shigure disengaged. She immediately made a sharp turn right and sailed away from the two.

 _"Alright good, keep an eye out on her—"_

 ** _CRASH_**

But again, explosions cut off the Admiral's words.

"Fire! The flight deck is…My flight deck is on fire…!" Houshou screamed, almost like she was crying. "Four hits on the deck…the fire is spreading…!

 _"…Napalms…those bombers were rearmed with napalm bombs…!"_ the commander groaned in complaint. _"Houshou-san, try your best to contain the fire. Take your time taking out the flames, we've deployed all of the planes that you have so there shouldn't be any…"_

"…no…"

 _"…Houshou-san?"_

The admiral tried relaying her orders, but somehow the Admiral was unresponsive.

"no…no, no…"

 _"Houshou-san, do you read?"_

Tapping sounds resonate from the radio, it seemed like the Admiral was testing her radio if it stopped working, but as she could receive her own feedback, she was sure that the radio worked.

"Houshou-san, what's going on?" Murasame turned to ask. At this point, the admiral was sure that her radio worked and that there is something wrong happening to the mother ship.

"H-Houshou-san…!" This time Haguro's voice echoed in the radio, but still, it doesn't seem like anything is registered to Houshou's ears at the moment.

Haguro peered at Houshou from right beside her ship.

"If…If this keeps up…" Houshou's transmitted voice indicates her lack of reaction to those around her; it was a very quiet voice barely audible even through her radio. She kneeled down in despair on the foremost area of her flight deck. In front of her was her archery bow, broken in two with ember glowing on four spots. The flight deck of her rig is even clearly burning, its fire danced in the salty wind of the sea. "If this keeps up…I'll also be told to retreat…"

Her voice shivers, inhaling and exhaling loudly that her sharp breaths were transmitted into the intercom. Each of her teammates understood just from that repeated sound coming into their earphones, that Houshou was in deep panic.

Somewhere in the corner of their hearing, the commander could be heard saying _"shit"_ twice.

Amidst Houshou's panic, the enemy fleet is still approaching fast. Murasame had already faced five near-misses that could have been fatal from Furutaka, and even as Ise had managed to suppress Unryuu's advances, had her third cannon heavily damaged from an armor-piercing bomb dropped by one of the dive bombers.

 _"Houshou-san, get a hold of yourself!"_ the admiral said despite its clear futility. Houshou's shivering voices slowly started to turn into a suppressed sob, as if she's trying not to cry.

The enemy fleet's destroyer, in an attempt to avoid Haguro's line of fire, moved to move parallel to Houshou's direction toward her port side. Once again, she sent a full broadside of HE shells; three of which exploded on Houshou's hull, creating massive dents and burn marks. Receiving damage on her flank side, Houshou who was on her knees tumbled over like she was kicked, coughing in a fit as a result.

"Don't touch our mother!"

Half-jokingly exclaiming, Haguro retaliated by firing her full broadside cannons loaded by HE shells right above Houshou's flaming flight deck. As Shigure's distance with Houshou was not very far, Haguro's shots that were aimed high to avoid hitting Houshou mostly missed Shigure, and the only one that managed to scratch Shigure only hit her crow's nest.

Thankfully it was enough for Shigure to back off and leave her striking position. In the offense as they were, the Mako fleet still seemed to be in a bit of a defensive position after they had their two submarine sisters sunk.

"Ugh, second turret mildly damaged; it's still functional!" Again, Ise reported after she received another attack that barely pierced her turret's armor.

 _"Ise can't take much more of the beating…we need to disable Unryuu as soon as possible!"_ the commander spoke before pondering. They were still stuck; they can't bring Houshou forward because of the intense fire from Furutaka and bombing efforts of Unryuu at the same time and Houshou's current downed condition. Haguro could also not press the attack because she needed to protect Houshou from Shigure who had been bothering the backline like a wasp.

 _"…?! What the? OUCH!"_

The commander's surprise was followed by a loud crashing from her end.

"…Houshou-san?"

Even Haguro was also surprised.

Houshou suddenly rose up to her feet with anger flaming in her eyes, and she increased her speed into flank speed. She spread her arms wide and slowly lifted them, sending all of her remaining aircraft nearby the sea surface to soar up high in the sky. After reaching certain altitude, Houshou swung her arms towards Unryuu.

 _"H-Houshou-san?!"_

'A dangerous move' can't even describe it perfectly. It was a reckless act much like a soldier deliberately shooting his whole magazine worth of ammunition into the sky while the whole enemy squad is charging on him. She sent her whole squadron right into their deaths, and even though it was replaceable with bauxite supplies, it was an act that was frowned upon in the whole navy.

But Houshou would take anything to win this fight.

She moved at flank speed, making a beeline straight to the forward enemy formation.

"Houshou-san, where are you going?!" Ise exclaimed as Houshou sailed right past her.

Three other continuous loud _clong_ ing sound sounded from the radio, followed by the admiral yelling _"OWW! MOTHER OF_ БЛЯТЬ, _くそったれ_ _ANJING, FUCKING KACKBRATZE!",_ cursing in 5 languages in one sentence.

 _If I can get a dollar for every time I've cursed in my lifetime, I'd be a billionaire by the time I'm 30,_ the admiral thought all the time.

Regardless, as if splitting open the waves, Houshou rushed forward; as she further went past the fleet, it got clearer that she's specifically going towards the direction of Unryuu.

 _"Houshou-san, what are you planning to do?!"_ with a mix of worry and anger, the admiral shouted through the radio.

"I'll take out Unryuu if it's the last thing I can do!" Houshou replied brazenly, ignoring her worried teammates. She disregarded everything on her way, moving recklessly as to even almost getting one of her torpedo bombers hit Murasame's mast.

 _"Houshou-san, whatever you're doing, stop!"_ the admiral got angrier as she sounded like she was struggling.

Even the enemy fleet saw what she's up to. They—Furutaka being the most noticeable—pressed their earphone in their ears, seemingly trying to concentrate listening on something through their radio communicators, and Furutaka's eyes widened. She immediately turned her attention to the runaway aircraft carrier.

She tried firing some projectiles toward her direction, but the aircraft carrier continued steaming out of her firing range; a mishap on Furutaka's side, who sailed too far to protect her ally's flank.

 _"Tch…Haguro, get after Houshou! Try to stop her if possible!"_

"I-I'm not sure, but I'll try."

Both Haguro and the Admiral understood that Haguro might not be fit enough to chase after Houshou given her holed hulls, while Murasame cannot freely move as she was pinned by Furutaka and Ise had to pin down Furutaka and try not to get Shigure's attention.

Little by little, Houshou closed her distance to the lead ship of the Unryuu-class. The aircraft carrier attempted to dodge by accelerating and turning away, but since she was only cruising at half-speed, accelerating to a flank speed took some time.

As Houshou's aircraft approached Unryuu, anti-aircraft fire from both Unryuu herself, her fighter aircrafts, along with anti-air fire from Taigei behind her roared loudly, attempting to strike the aircrafts down.

But Houshou's aircrafts didn't even seem like they are there to send off a proper attack toward Unryuu. The torpedo bombers approached the carrier, and released their payloads as soon as even an anti-air gun slowly turn toward its general direction or when Unryuu's Zero gets hot on their six. The dive bombers too reluctantly attack the aircraft carriers, only flying either too high that their bombs fell up to five hundred meters off target or too low that the explosion of the bombs, whether it's a hit to the deck or to the sea water, had destroyed their own tails. Houshou's Zeroes on the other hand, weren't focusing on protecting their fellow aircrafts nor shooting down Unryuu's planes, but rather they tried to spend all of their ammunition making a Swiss cheese out of Unryuu, which proves no result at all.

 _Five hundred meters_ , Houshou thought in her heart. That was the distance between her and the enemy carrier, but the flaming ball of fiery ship kept cruising with the speed of roughly 12 meters per second, it wouldn't take a minute for her to reach Unryuu. In the meantime, her left flank felt like it was punched; a torpedo had hit her front starboard hull, ripping apart some of her bulkheads.

 _Three hundred meters_.

At this point, Houshou seemingly shut off her auditory sense as all other voices aside from her heartbeat, her rugged breath and her flaming ship were heavily muffled. Her vision continued to blur and darkens; the calming sunset she saw merely seconds ago seemed to have disappointed her as its luminosity slowly sinks into a despairing dark.

 _Two hundred fifty meters._

She spotted her target Unryuu despite her dying vision. Unryuu could be seen panicking while still attempting to shoot down Houshou with her aircrafts. But Houshou didn't stop. All she could think of is to exert more strength to move forward, disregarding the pain of seawater entering her bulkheads, or her flight deck that's continuously burning. Her eyes strained as she endured the pain meanwhile attempting to focus back on her target.

 _One hundred meters_.

She reached a point of no return. Regardless if she changed her course or if she shifted her speed to full reverse, she could not avoid colliding with Unryuu.

 _Fifty meters_.

All voices disappeared. " _Did she lose consciousness?"_ , the other ships thought, but the mother ship's structure still speeds through the flaming sunset. Houshou felt like she was about to fall asleep, tired from the power she had to exert and the agony she had to endure. The fire felt hot; so hot that it's freezing. The seawater entering her hull was cold; so cold that it felt warm. Houshou felt the ground leaving her feet, but still, she tried to exert what's left of her strength as to not collapse.

And then, in the middle of complete silence,

Houshou's prow burrowed into Unryuu's hull with a crashing noise even louder than Kiso's explosion.


	13. The Mothership's Lament

As if she's been hit by a soccer ball flying at Mach one, Houshou's head was flung back. Her hair scattered in the air, almost like dancing sarcastically as the cute bun the admiral put up for her dispersed and the hair stick flew away from her reach.

It felt like forever. Houshou felt like she was suspended mid-air, awaiting the inevitable agony that didn't come immediately.

And as she thought, it all goes down.

Her skull felt a massive concussion. She felt numb the first fraction of a second before the pain assaults her entire body. The sudden change of position puts extreme pressure on her neck and her spine and she felt like her brain had been turned into a mush.

She opened her mouth, but nothing like a scream came out of her sore throat although she emptied her lungs for it.

But she still need to brace herself, for what await her will be the impact with hot, burning timber that is her crumbling flight deck.

 _Thud_

But the impact she received weren't as hard and scorching as she thought.

The back of her head landed on something soft, but the momentum she carried out topples over whatever was behind her, and although she still falls down nevertheless, it softens her impact.

Her surrounding was still scorching, but the area exactly on her back weren't.

Everything were quiet afterwards. All Houshou could hear was merely her own ragged breathing and the burning of cinders around her. Something behind her moved slowly, gently letting her down to lie on her own deck while having her head slightly in a higher position, before again, silence ensues.

Houshou choked as her lungs struggles for air, while her eyes, shut close in agony, slowly oozes tears from its corner. Her face twisted, the liquid building up in her respiratory tract further caused her to choke. She felt like crying like a baby, but her sobbing sounded held-back, as if she was trying to not cry.

How long has it been? Houshou lost count. She felt like she had been lying down in agony for hours, trying to gasp for air and seeking escape from her pain, but since she had closed her eyes completely, she had no way of figuring out.

A pair of arms from somewhere crept up to her, and for Houshou who was still delirious from the impact and not knowing what is what, she was startled beyond her recognition, and caused her to break down and cry in panic. Are they her teammates? Or maybe they are the ship girls from the other team? Again, she had no way of figuring out aside from the faint crowd she could hear in the distance

But the pair of arms gently and slowly went around her body, quickly and precisely unlatching the damaged and burning riggings off of the mother ship's body; the flight deck on her arms, and the quiver on her back. After the arms unlatched the riggings, the deck below her back shook; seemingly from the individual tossing the rigging away, followed by a soft sigh.

After thus, the environment was only filled with Houshou's sobbing.

Houshou was embarrassed of her crying; the entire time tears flowed out of her eyes, she closed her face with both of her hands. She only opened them briefly at certain time gaps to allow her to gasp for air, revealing her messy, feeble expression.

"…o…y…" Houshou moaned amidst her crying. Maybe it was because of her sore throat and her crying got her words stuck in her throat "I'm…sorry…", and finally after the second try, she expressed her thoughts clearly.

She was still not sure who she was talking to, but it was clear to her that _somebody_ was there. Somebody that could listen to her concerns and anguish.

"I'm sorry…I acted recklessly…" like a child who regretted her action after she got scolded, Houshou continued crying. "I just…I just wanted to be useful to the admiral…"

Gasping for breaths and choking, the mother ship stopped briefly.

"I'm just…I'm just an outdated carrier…I-I can do nothing to contribute to the fleet…someone like me…I shouldn't even be put in the active fleet anyways!" Her cries turned into shouts as she got even more frustrated at herself. "I'm just a burden to the fleet…the admiral might as well scrap me to supplement other better ships!"

Still closing her eyes shut, Houshou moved her hands toward her hair, attempting to rip them off to no avail. After exerting her strength, her tension seemed to have decreased albeit slightly.

"…I know that I don't want to be scrapped…but for her life I'd be willing to give mine." Houshou said boldly before sobbing. "I talked with her subordinate from her other line of work…I heard it all…that…that _bullshit_ about intelligence defense…that she had to kill herself to protect our intelligence…So what then?! If we fail at our mission and even let our commander be vulnerable to _them_ , then her only choice is to die?!" After that sentence, Houshou grit her teeth so tight that the sound of her teeth gnashing could be heard overlapping with the sound of the fire around her. "If that's the case then we'll need to do better in protecting her, right?! And if she chose to give life to this worthless carrier that I am, it's only natural that I just want to do the best for her, right?!

She's given me everything that I could've hoped for despite my clear lack of prowess. I owe my whole life to her…so what I did was justified…right?"

Houshou tried to seek justification more than asking for consolation. She knew well how her actions might have jeopardized the others, but if it's about the admiral, it should be fine, right?

"No, it's not."

The voice came from above Houshou's face directly…and it was a voice Houshou did not expect. The same time the voice rang, a sticky warm liquid with different consistency from her tears dropped onto Houshou's forehead.

The voice wasn't that of her fleetmate. It wasn't the voice of Unryuu as well, who might be right next to her as she clashed onto her.

It was her battered-up admiral, smiling gently upon her.

Houshou snapped her eyes open and revealed her tear-layered face, and right on top of her face was her admiral's face; she had been lying on top of her admiral's laps while the admiral had been looking after her.

The warm liquid that dripped onto her forehead was…her admiral's blood. The admiral's forehead was bleeding profusely, making a streak of blood across her pale although dirty complexion, slowly dripping off her chin.

"M-miss admiral…what did…a-ahh…!" Seeing her admiral wounded, Houshou started to panic yet again. She attempted to pick herself up; but it was a mix of her lack of remaining strength and the admiral's hands pressing her shoulders down that results in Houshou only capable of flailing her arms and legs weakly. "A-at least…at least I need to stop…the bleeding…" Her chest stings as more blood drips onto her forehead, which in turn seems to squeeze out more tears from the paralyzed mothership's eyes.

"Houshou," the admiral called, but Houshou didn't listen.

"M-miss admiral should be quiet…! We…we need to take care of your injuries…" Houshou continued flailing, reaching her glove-covered hand onto the admiral's face, which then the admiral dodges effortlessly. Understanding the futility of her attempts, Houshou started calling out the others. "Everyone…anyone…! Please treat the admiral's wound…I beg of you…!"

But the admiral calmly raised her left arm, as if telling someone to stop.

"Houshou-san, will you listen to me?"

Houshou's flailing weakened. Even if Houshou was upset, worried and panicked, she hasn't completely lost her reasoning; she felt that if she kept doing what she thought was a hissy fit, she'll _really_ be scrapped for insubordinate behavior. All she could do at that point is to stand down, her arms immediately dropped like a puppet which strings were cut.

"You see, Houshou-san," the admiral said, smiling again. "being an admiral is no easy job, you know. Especially more so if you're not just dealing with the administrative of a whole navy, but you have to interact with each and every one of your ships like it's a school." The admiral chuckled, bringing one of her hand near her mouth. "But it's a very…satisfying job. We all strive for the same goal. We found some of you in the ocean, we construct some of you, and we get to see you grow."

Houshou remembered the first time she met the admiral.

She wasn't one of the girls that the admiral constructed as a shipgirl. She was one who were washed up in the ocean, until a small Torpedo Squadron of one light cruiser and a handful of destroyers found her and transferred her to the naval district where they currently live.

 _"Ashikaga Ayumi,"_ said the woman with an overly tidy navy uniform, greeting her as the small fleet arrived back at the port. _"I am the commanding officer of this navy. It's still a small navy and I just recently got promoted to an admiral, but I'll do my best to help."_

 _Naïve_ was the first word Houshou could come up with after seeing the officer's innocent ambition, but aside from that, Houshou was completely glad that she managed to obtain a place she could call home.

For some reason or another, the admiral sees potential in Houshou and raised her to be her secretary ship, and from that position, Houshou finally gained the ability to see the navy from her admiral's point of view.

Everyday, the admiral's youthful passion pushes her to keep striving forward, trying her best to finish her qualifications to expand the naval base for her fleets, and even establishing more fleets so her ships could all obtain some degree of battle experience…but it was never easy.

Paperwork was hell, finishing qualifications to open up facilities especially was a living torture device, the admiral often said, but despite she could quit at any moment, she didn't. All of it is because of one thing.

The joy of witnessing growth.

"I'm sure you understood it because you're the one who's been next to me for years now, but isn't it nice to see the girls learn something new? Or those times when they get overly excited when they're given new equipment to try on?" The admiral continued, looking out to the sea, toward the direction of their home port. "Yuubari aside, remember how even the stoic Yayoi jumped on her feet when we first gave her the experimental sextuple torpedo mount? That one time I felt really glad that I took the time researching for it before finally getting its production underway and gave it to that girl."

"Now let me ask you a question, Houshou-san;" the admiral once again turned her face towards the woman on her lap. "If I was about to die, how would you react?" It seemed off that she asked a very serious question in a somewhat nonchalant attitude, but her question was undoubtedly serious.

Houshou sniffed through her runny nose before answering; "I will seek the corners of the world to eliminate whoever killed you, and I would probably kill myself afterwards." Her answer was not a joke, but the admiral chuckled nevertheless. "Please do not laugh, I'm answering in all seriousness."

"I know, and that's why I laughed." The admiral choked a bit before continuing. "Either way, you probably would be sad, right?"

"Despair."

"Yes, that." The admiral continued. "But you see, I'll also feel that way if I lose even one of you…and you see, if that moment when we're all pushed into a corner and the only choice I can make is to shoot myself, I'd probably do that because I've failed you. I won't be able to bear the guilt that my reckless decision led to your deaths, your suffering, and the defeat of our navy. Just seeing you come home with injuries pains me every time, much less the idea of losing you…any of you…

If only I could choose not to send you in a battle, I'd take that choice every day." The admiral digressed in frustration, getting louder by every word she says. "…so, when I see you hurt yourself just like that, just for _me_ , of all things…I can't bear it. And before you tell me not to worry about you, it's not that easy. Don't you dare call yourself a burden, insignificant, or any of those bullshit…I don't care about those…I just care about all of you…as a person. You matter…all of you. If you dare say that no one cared about you, you're dead wrong, because I'm here, and I'd be fucking worried if you got hurt. Besides, it isn't even remotely true that you're useless. You're the one who's been by my side the longest, so I thought you're the one who knows best that you've been the greatest help that I could've asked for. You cared about the whole navy like you're their mother, even taking care of _me_ when I'm down in the ditch. You're the one who's been helping us the most in a department that a lot of people wouldn't even bat their eyes on…that's why I picked you as my secretary." The admiral's tension eased, ending her sentence with a long, heavy sigh.

Finally, she gently put her hand covered with blood-stained glove on Houshou's forehead, sweeping away her locks from covering her eyes.

"So please…if you really care about me and your comrades…don't let me see something like this…ever again."

Never had Houshou seen her admiral's face in such pain before; not only from her injuries, but from what Houshou had done.

Houshou had risked everything the admiral loves; be it the other ship girls and herself.

"I'm…sorry…"

Tears welled up on the corners of the mother ship's eyes once again, quickly overflowing and dripping down her smoke dust-covered cheek.

"There, there, don't cry, Houshou-san. As long as you understand, and you won't do it again, I forgive you." The admiral consoled the crying woman in her lap. After taking off her dirtied glove, she slowly caressed Houshou's head.

"I promise…I promise I won't do it again…" amidst her sobbing, Houshou answered honestly, letting her emotion be shown in full display.

"Theere there, good girl. You did well." Continued the admiral. "Shall we go home now, Houshou? I bet you're hungry after the training. I have some food I brought back from the G&K Firebase if you want."

"…Un… _sniff_ …I want them..." Houshou's strength was completely drained at that point, and she regressed into a childlike state, wanting to be spoiled. She rubbed the tears of her eyes like a child would, and smiled back towards her beloved commander.

And thus, with the sound of the waves and the soft sobbing of Houshou, the curtain to the training that day is slowly lowered close.


	14. Warmth

Thirty minutes later in the docks.

Some people would simply call the docks as "a bizarrely large bath house", but it's not really very bizarre if you think that the bath house is built for ships. Either way, the Admiral's fleet prefers to call it the bath house.

The first and fifth fleet all combined, the ships rowdily entered the bath.

The shipgirls were talking about the earlier mock battle, discussing what they did, what they didn't, what they could've done, and some general awesome moments they felt had happened; such as how Furutaka landed her entire broadside into Kiso's hulls.

Bear in mind; there were no hostilities in the conversation. Kiso _were_ slightly salty about how she was removed from the battle in no time, but she also acknowledges that it was partly her mistake. Fubuki was very curious on who damaged her in the last second after the ASW session and how did they do that, and it turned out both Hitomi and Iyo's _Seiran_ s that took off way earlier snuck up to her and released their payloads, damaging the destroyer severely. She wasn't even mad, rather she thought of it as impressive that both could still micro-manage their aircrafts despite coming under attack.

If any, the Mako fleet was quite upset with the Admiral.

They knew that their admiral was cunning to a certain degree, but Iyo was still upset about how the Admiral's instruction could result in a devastating hit from Ise, of all ships. Furthermore, they were also rather troubled at how she managed to literally prevent Houshou from getting struck by torpedoes that are literally unavoidable at that point and time.

In the end, Murasame folded her arms and said "TTK too OP, pls nerf.", followed by a mutual consensus by the entirety of both fleets.

After joyfully cleansing themselves, the girls entered the huge bath one by one.

The damage from the mock battle were designed to be trivial in the end; although they were severely damaged to the point of near sinking, once they exited the training area, all they could feel was soreness in the area where they were hit.

"But still though…Houshou is really something."

Then, their conversation trailed off to something else.

Or more specifically, _someone_ else; someone who—for some reason—weren't present in the bath house.

"Hm? What's wrong with Houshou-san?" Kiso asked. Her confusion was understandable, given that she passed out after Furutaka's critical hit. There were bags underneath her eyes as she calmly sat on the edge of the bath. She dipped her legs into the bath, trying to get used to the heat before she soaks herself.

"Houshou-san went a bit ahead of herself, so she did…some dangerous thing." Shigure explained from somewhere in the room. "She forced herself forward and crashed on Unryuu…but that's until the Admiral stopped the training prematurely."

"So the training wasn't really over?"

The rest of the fleet nodded.

"Houshou-san was seriously injured…and apparently she got the admiral injured too." Ise said, leaning back on the bath walls after a moan of pleasure from enjoying the warmth.

"Well, of course the admiral will feel hurt after seeing… _tha_ t," Kiso continued, chuckling lightly, but then Taigei cut her halfway.

"No, Kiso-san. The admiral was literally, physically injured." Seeing the cloud in Taigei's eyes, Kiso understood that the Submarine Tender wasn't joking.

"Yo what the hell? Why is the admiral injured?!" Kiso took the matter seriously; she quickly stood up in a panic, creating ripples in the bath.

"Calm down, Kiso-san. Everything is under control, the admiral is alright." Taigei reassured, wiping the mix of sweat and water vapor from her cheek with the back of her hands.

"B-but…how did the admiral even get injured? She's not supposed to be directly involved with the combat…!"

"Well…" Taigei hesitated for some reason, so Ise decided to continue for her after a deep sigh.

"That admiral of ours…it turned out she snuck herself into Houshou's ship and monitored the whole battle from there…that's why she could gave us precise orders like that…" Ise said, submerging herself up to her chin.

"If you think about it that way, our combat effectiveness nearly doubles with the Admiral on board, and to be honest, I'd be crying in honor if I can have the Admiral on board of my ship", Fubuki commented, "but again, we're only going to risk her safety that way, so I have a mixed feeling about it…"

The shipgirls nodded again.

"S…so, what kind of injury did the Admiral suffer?" hesitantly lowering herself to the bath, Kiso asked again.

"Minor concussions, mostly." Taigei answered, scratching her cheek. "When Houshou-san accelerated suddenly, the admiral fell and hit her head against something she didn't disclose, and Houshou's ship while crumbling caused some things to fall on the admiral."

"A-admiral's forehead was bleeding a lot…" Hitomi continued, "and when we got back, I think she said that she had some bruises on her arms and legs."

"Also, there were some burn marks because she ran over to Houshou's place through her deck that was set on fire." Murasame supplemented with a tone of worry.

"That admiral…why does she have to act so recklessly all the damn time?" Kiso cursed, "and who would've thought that _the_ Houshou-san would do something like that…"

"But it gets better after that!" Iyo suddenly snapped in as she pops her head out from the water. "You see, after the crash happened, Admiral went over to Houshou-san, right? And—!"

At that moment, the door opened.

"Guys, don't gossip behind people's backs."

"Ah."

The person who entered was the gossiped individual; the admiral.

"Urk…"

"…"

"Uoooohhh…!"

"Hm hm, that's a solid ten!"

But as she did, the two fleets showed different reactions. Iyo and Unryuu gazed upon the admiral in admiration, while the rest of the fleet turned their faces away bashfully. It was a mix of embarrassment, and a pinch of jealousy.

It's not the first time that the girls had entered the bath along with their commander, but…

"Well…how do I say it…you're…a woman, butblublublublglub…" Furutaka muttered gingerly, slowly lowering herself until she even put her mouth into the water.

"Everyone's charmed, I'm sure!" Iyo confidently stated while licking the admiral's body with her eyes. The admiral was nearly stark naked, but she covered the front of her body with a wet, thin towel that almost barely covered her voluptuous figure. She let her braided hair down, which gives a rather refreshing feeling as beads of water stuck on them gives an illusion of glimmer. For some reason, she still kept the watch she always wears even in the bath.

But her normally spotless skin now had several injuries.

Most of them were cuts, but among them were also blue smudges of bruises around her arms and legs. Most noticeably, her forehead was bandaged.

"A-admiral…are you okay now?" Kiso asked while still hesitating, not sure where to look.

"Yeah I'm fine. These bruises would disappear in about two days or so, so it shouldn't be a problem." The admiral said, gently stroking her arm. "But more importantly, someone would like to say something to all of you."

After thus, the admiral let the person behind her to present herself.

The mother ship, Houshou.

Her gaze was cast down, and her hands were clasped tightly in front of her towel-clad body. Her hair that she let down flows gently, but due to the humidity, it partially clung to Houshou's smooth back.

"Everyone…I'm sorry!"

Without any further delay, the mother ship flung her torso down, apologizing with a perfect, 90-degree bow. She was hesitant, of course, but exactly because of that, she couldn't be less sincere if she left the crew hanging while she stutters herself, so she decided to throw herself into it.

"I've compromised the safety of our own navy, whether it be my own fleet or the Mako fleet, and not only that, I've jeopardized the admiral's life, so for that…I'm sorry…!" Her damp hair slipped from her back and hung to the side of her neck. Her locks on her forehead also hung freely, covering her eyes.

The rest of the two fleet were in complete silence. Only the drips coming out of the tap could be heard in the steamy room.

"Well," Taigei was the first one to break the silence, "I mean, if what you said was true, then probably I would have done so myself, doesn't everyone think that way?"

"Of course," Shigure echoed, "I completely agree with Houshou-san in that matter, but of course moderation is very much necessary."

"…What did she say, anyways?"

"But well, again like Shigure said, I agree that I'd do anything for the admiral. I mean, who wouldn't?" Ise snickered while leaning back. "But while trying to protect the commander, be careful not to hurt her instead."

"Soo the bottomline is just basically, we forgive you, Houshou-san. I believe that's what everyone is trying to say." Iyo said, stretching right after resurfacing from the bath.

"Can anyone not ignore me? What did Houshou-san say?"

Houshou was speechless. It was too easy, she thought. Why was it so easy for them to forgive her? In the first place, is it even okay for them to forgive her just like that.

"Houshou-san?" the admiral called. She prodded the stunned Houshou's shoulder, and it snapped her right back.

"W…why?" Houshou asked. "I did something very wrong…so why did you forgive me so easily…?"

She felt like crying again, but after all the crying she did, she'll be more embarrassed if she broke out again, so all she could do is hold her breath with her hand, praying that she won't let out a sniffle.

"Like we said, if we're in your shoes, we would probably panic a lot more and do something as reckless as what you did, but thankfully we didn't know what was going on and by the time we do, the admiral already said all those words, so what else can we do?" Murasame smiled

"So anyways, I thought you must be cold, so get in the bath already so your injuries can be repaired quickly." Fubuki turned out to have exited the bath and got behind the silent mothership, before gently pushing her from behind.

"See? I told you it's alright." The admiral muttered with her hand on her hip. Houshou couldn't have heard it due to the rowdiness of their allies in the bath, but that was fine. As long as her trusted ship is mingling happily with her allies, it was enough.

"Houshou-san, you were so cute back then you know!" With no knowledge of the word _insensitive_ , Iyo prodded again into Houshou-san's behavior after the crash. But this time, seeing how it's not a gossip but rather, a conversation, the rest of the fleet chose to pursue it.

"Houshou-san is always reliable like a mom, but seeing you act spoiled in front of the admiral is fine too!" Murasame came closer to Houshou who sat down gently in the bath as the warm water soaks her skin while cleansing and fixing her damaged tired body.

"Mama-Houshou is cute either way!" It was still bearable when the three childish character, Murasame, Fubuki and Iyo said it, but it goes beyond saving point when Ise said it.

"Aaaaaaaa…" Houshou covered her eyes and yelled in a shivering voice.

"What, I believe Houshou-mama had turned into Houshou-chan and were indulging herself in papa admiral's love, that's why she's late to take a bath~"

"N-no, I was helping treat the admiral's injury…!"

"I'm jealousss!"

The other fleet members in the bath laughed while still enjoying the short moment they can witness the gap of personality of their beloved mothership.

Meanwhile somewhere else, in the shower area of the bath house, there were the admiral and two other ships.

"Good work out there, miss admiral."

"Good work~"

"You too, Taigei, Shigure." The admiral replied after dispensing a pinch of shampoo to her hand. Without saying anything, she quickly proceeded to wetting the shampoo slightly and applying it to her hair.

"Shall I wash your back, miss admiral?" Taigei suggested, showing an already foaming body scrub in the form of a pair of gloves, opening and closing it repeatedly to make more bubbles. The admiral thought she'd do it by herself, but considering how Taigei already put soap in it and put the gloves on her hand and also her innocent expression of wanting to help, the admiral couldn't refuse.

"Sure, I guess."

"Yay!"

The admiral moved her long hair from her back to her front torso, allowing her to clean it more easily and at the same time giving access for Taigei to easily scrub her back.

Meanwhile Shigure who had been next to the admiral muttered _"Damn, she beat me to it…now what do I do?"_ since she already washed her body before the admiral came to the bath house.

"Admiral, how did I do in the exercise earlier?" so instead, she asked to make a conversation, putting her hands between her legs; in the edge of the small chair she was sitting on.

"Honestly? No matter how many times I see it, your stealth is very impressive." The admiral replied while rubbing her head clean. "No offense, but it's good that you're utilizing your lack of presence. Somehow it translates to less detectability in the sea for some reason, but it's still good."

The admiral was about to reach her hand toward Shigure's head to pet her by reflex, but she realized it was still coated with shampoo, so she hesitated, but Shigure consented, saying "It's okay, we're in the bath anyways!"

"But…"

"and I won't accept anything short of a pat!"

"…Alright then, if that's okay with you."

Hearing her insist, the admiral couldn't really refuse so she hesitantly placed her bubbly hand on Shigure's head and gently stroke it.

"AhahahahahaIgottheadmiral'sskinoilandtheshampootooonmyheadthisisthebestdayever _ahahahaha_ _ **HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA**_!"

"Hm? What?"

"Absolutely nothing."

The admiral felt like she heard a whisper from Shigure along with ragged, irregular breathing, but she thought it might be her hallucination.

"Still, I think that's worth researching. It's going to be good if more ships can be less detectable during their cruise." The admiral said, now cleaning the hair in front of her chest. "That is, if you don't mind."

"Of course I won't! I'd do anything for you! But to be honest, I don't know if other ships would like it if they lack presence as a side effect." Shigure replied, smiling wryly.

Initially, Shigure was frustrated by how people are unable to easily notice her presence. She was sad that she felt she might be meaningless which caused people to disregard her presence.

But the admiral was the first one to praise her for this.

The admiral and a few ships noticed her more than other people does, and the admiral arranged them to be in the same fleet. The admiral viewed this "flaw" that Shigure thought she had, as a "talent". With the several ships that she could mingle with, the Mako fleet became a stealthy and deadly fleet.

"So what's the plan after this, miss admiral?" Taigei continued asking while continuing to rub her lower back.

"Dinner, and then rest. We'll start early tomorrow and proceed with the usual activity."

"Another Orel cruising for the submarines?"

"Haha, maybe."

Finishing her shampoo, the admiral picked up the showerhead nearby and washed the foam off her head. Shigure thought of pranking the admiral by pouring more shampoo as she washes off the foam, but as she thought she might get smacked on the head for wasting shampoo, she refrained.

"I'll explain more on dinnertime, but for now, let's just enjoy the bath." She asserted, blissfully reveling in the warmth of the shower.

"If there's any spots that might hurt, please tell me, miss admiral."

"It's just minor bruises, so it doesn't hurt…or at least for now." The admiral chuckled. "Human bodies are strange, sometimes it seems painful but it doesn't hurt, and it's not until a day or two later when everything just sinks in and all of a sudden I can't move."

"Much like when you said it's fine after doing a rough workout, but the next day you're overwhelmed by muscle cramps?"

"Exactly."

Taigei had finished washing her commander's back, so she pooled up some water using a small bucket the author conveniently put nearby, and rinses off the soap off the admiral's back, leaving only her spotless, pale skin.

 _Looking at this small back carrying this much responsibility makes me want to hug the admiral from behind every time I see it_ , Taigei thought, and for sure, she wasn't the only one thinking such, but since she doesn't want to bother the admiral, Taigei only rubbed her back gently.

"And speaking of tomorrow's activities, admiral," Shigure pressed closer towards her admiral, her face almost touching her commander's cheek. This time, she sounded slightly angry at the admiral. "You're not going to sneak yourself into our ships, are you?" her eyes squinted as she asked.

"…W-well, I was thinking maybe I would love to cruise together instead of— _YEOWCH_!"

Before the admiral could finish her sentence, Taigei pinched her in one of humanity's weak spot; her triceps.

 **"Sorry, miss admiral, I couldn't hear you over the sound of the water"** , said Taigei ominously although there were no water pouring anywhere in the bath house.

"…I'll stay home and do some paperwork…"

In the end, the admiral could only reply meekly in the face of the two ship's silent rage.


	15. Shootout

After an embarrassing exchange with the entirety of the navy during dinner, Houshou exited the mess hall with a soft sigh and a hand on her chest. The other ships had already exited earlier, but Houshou was helping out Taigei, Mamiya and Irako to clean up the mess hall so it took longer for her to leave the hall.

It's not like she hated it; she likes to help out with cleanups and she had been doing it quite frequently even though she doesn't have to. Besides, she wouldn't want to exit the mess hall along with other ships just to feel embarrassed of what she did earlier.

"I'm leaving first."

"Thank you again, Houshou-san!"

Smiling at Mamiya's thanks, Houshou closed the door and let out a subtle sigh once again.

 _What a long day_ , her face seemed to cry.

Dinnertime is one of the few times the whole navy comes together in one place, which means it's the easiest time for the admiral to convey her message if she were to have a widespread announcement for everyone.

This dinnertime was no exception.

The admiral announced on the makeshift podium (read: a random crate) about the arrival of her two subordinates from her other job; Nines and Luger. Again, just like the admiral explained to Houshou, she explained why they are there…and obviously, commotion erupted the moment the admiral spoke about the need for suicide.

That was where Houshou stepped up to calm the whole girls down.

She told them that she completely understood how absurd the system is, but at the same time, there is nothing to do about it; they cannot disobey the orders of the upper generals, so all they can do is do everything they could so that situation where the admiral have to kill herself do not happen.

As such, the fleet left the mess hall, feeling slightly bitter, but fresh with new determination.

"I should go back to the office…" Houshou as the secretary ship mostly thought that she should be on standby every time she had nothing to do. It was still 10 PM. The night is still young, so she thought that the admiral might still need some help, especially since she just got back from vacation and her injury that Houshou herself had caused might be hindering her work.

But as she turned around to head for the office, she had already found her admiral.

Leaning out the window, the admiral seemed like she's enjoying the cool night breeze while staring at the near-full moon, glowing blue in the sky. The gust blew her untied hair, scattering the moonlight beautifully.

"…" Houshou was stunned for a brief period, until the admiral shifts her gaze toward the mother ship and caused her to snap back to reality. "M-miss admiral, you're going to catch a cold if you keep doing that…"

"It's alright, the spring air feels warm today." The admiral smiled, still leaning on the window sill. Her usual beautiful smile was somehow accentuated by the whole scene. Then, her lips opened. "On that note, what do you say we go for a cruise?"

* * *

It wasn't long until they are out at the sea.

Houshou was of course confused and conflicted by the admiral's invitation, but she felt that it was an order, so she followed suit.

The admiral specifically told her not to equip her armaments, so although Houshou was still required to equip her rigging to allow her to control and spawn her ship, she left the bow and quiver behind, effectively leaving the aircrafts and deactivating the catapult system and secondary cannons.

They cruised for approximately thirty minutes, heading for nowhere in particular, and at that point, they've cruised for around a nautical mile away from their home port.

During that time, Houshou went around the interior of her ship, checking if the repair at the dock earlier was enough to bring her ship back to fresh condition. From the bulkheads to the flight deck, it seems like everything was repaired perfectly.

Finishing her checks, she approached the edge of her flight deck; that was where her admiral was sitting down.

She brought with her two holsters strapped to her body; one for her personal tablet and the other for her office weapon. The admiral herself was checking on the tablet, showing the data on Houshou's current condition.

"Miss Admiral, I am done checking the ship." Houshou reported, standing perfectly straight and gave a firm salute.

"At ease," the admiral said. "Everything is alright it seems?"

"Yes, I believe you can check it on your tablet as well."

"Anything feels off? Turrets, elevators, catapults?"

"All green, miss admiral."

"Good."

Houshou somehow felt stiff. She was more or less nervous; she thought her commander would bring her far into the sea in order to get some privacy, and for that, she thought that there could be only one thing;

Houshou did something _very_ wrong.

She understood her mistakes, but when push comes to shove, Houshou still feel terrified of what sanctions the admiral might put on her. Just thinking that the admiral might put her in suspension brings sorrow in her expression.

"Okay, first; turn off your communication devices. They're usually for communicating between the ships and me, but since it's just you and me now, and we're right face to face, we don't need these." The admiral took off the headset connected to a radio clipped to her waist. Following the commander's order, Houshou also unequipped the headset, picked the radio and rolled the cable around it. Houshou then passed the radio to the commander, who then put it somewhere on the deck.

"Alright, you might already understand why I called you here." The admiral grunted as she stood back up on her feet. It seemed like she brought Lu, the Luger P08 pistol, with her; she inserted the magazine and pulled back the pistol's jointed arm and releasing it to close the breech and swiftly putting the pistol into a holster strapped to her thigh. The tablet that she carried were also put in a holster strapped to her belt.

"It's…because of my insubordination…is it not?"

"Sad to say, but you're right." The admiral turned toward the mother ship and folded her arms. "Let's hear it from you, what do you think you did wrong?"

"I…" Houshou hesitated, despite knowing clearly what she had done. Her throat felt sore, and she find it hard to let out a voice, but it was mostly caused by her nervousness. Wanting to get this over quickly, Houshou forced herself to speak. "Insubordination, disobeying orders, unintentional aggression against fleetmates, and causing injury to the admiral…"

"You're missing one." The admiral sternly exclaimed. She turned to look into her tablet while seemingly waiting for Houshou to answer, but since Houshou looked like she doesn't have a clue, she decided to say it. "Recklessness and disregard for personal safety."

Houshou's eyes widened.

"I know it's not written in any rules in the headquarters, but that's our very own rule that we made to be enforced in our navy."

 _We made._

At that point, Houshou remembered.

The rule was applied one and a half years ago. After a certain torpedo squadron gets back, almost sunken from the battle. The admiral turned up to them with a very angry fit. The case was similar to what Houshou is facing today.

Insubordination.

The torpedo squadron refused to return before they managed to accomplish something even though most of them are damaged. Soon after, they were ambushed by the abyssal fleet, albeit fortunately, they still managed to drive the enemy off.

 _The admiral went on preaching for two whole hours back then…_ Houshou recalled. After thus, the admiral while still being angry, told Houshou and the whole navy during dinner that _you are not to act recklessly and disregard your personal safety_ , effectively making it a formal rule within the naval base.

The admiral asked for Houshou's opinion of the rule that time, so technically, Houshou was one of the co-founder of that rule.

Yet she broke it.

She broke the rule that she and her admiral made.

Tears were about to well up in the corners of Houshou's eyes, but she sucked it up and stood up straight, trying to be responsible of her actions.

"And…and my sanctions…miss admiral…?"

Her voice shivers, but she could only push on.

"Are you ready to receive your sanctions? I won't accept no as an answer." The admiral said. This time, there were no joy, care, or kindness in her tone. She went into a full boss mode where she isolates her ego and proceed in delivering the necessary punishment in cold blood.

"Y…yes." Houshou took a deep breath and bit her lips.

"I see." The admiral squinted, her glare was sharper than a blade, and her glove-clad hands gripped tightly. She stowed away her tablet again, and this time, she retrieved her gun.

"Luger P08, the Parabellum pistol, if you want. It fits 8 rounds in its magazine, and it's pretty simple to use." The commander smiled, but there was no trace of beauty in it. The smile looked…sarcastic, artificial…and cold. "So I want you to use this gun, and…" the admiral presented the gun to Houshou, holding the barrel so Houshou could grab it from the grip. Not thinking much of the gun, Houshou reached her hand out and took the gun, but the next sentence that came out of the admiral's mouth, she could never forget it in her entire life;

" **…eliminate your fleetmates.** "

…

…

…

 _Huh?_

"W…what did you just say…?"

"I want you to kill the other ships in your fleet. Point the gun to their head and simply pull the trigger. It's that easy."

Blood drained from Houshou's face. Her jaw seemed to lose power and it hangs open. Her lungs were impacted with the shock that her breathing was agitated though irregular. In its consequence, her hyperventilation supplied too much oxygen to her brain and caused her dizziness. Her vision is blackening, and she could barely stay awake with her vision going dark most of the times. She did not even have the strength left to hold back the tears in her eyes.

The admiral was not joking. Her eyes were dead serious, and her stance was firm…she was seriously asking Houshou to kill her teammates…the same ships that she fought with for the last year, and the ones that were clearly worried about her condition just earlier today. The admiral didn't even bat an eye on her order; she completely did not care about the fleet; she just wants the order to be done.

"Wh…y…can you at least tell me why…?"

"You're a soldier, aren't you? Or a weapon, you all like to say that you're just weapons, right? So stop asking and just do what you're told."

The admiral's attitude was so cold that it sent chills down Houshou's spine. The weight of the gun tripled, but since Houshou knew that that gun is another one of the admiral's subordinate, she couldn't drop it.

 _Does miss admiral's other subordinates they have to face this sort of orders as well?_ Houshou wondered, but she knows that it's not the time for wondering.

Her commander posed her a major question; will she obey the order and disregard her friends' future, or will she further push for insubordination and save five of her friends?

The commander in front of her folded her arms.

 _I'm waiting_ , her sharp glare seemed to say.

Houshou shifts her wavering gaze back to the gun. She lifted it weakly in front of her, and turned back to the admiral.

She was still waiting.

Questions appeared in Houshou's mind…dozens of questions waiting to be answered.

 _Why is the admiral ordering me to do this?_

 _What have they done to deserve this?_

 _Is it my fault?_

 _Is this really the admiral I love and admired?_

She wanted to ask, but her throat was too paralyzed to even let out a voice. Besides, even if she managed to ask the questions, the admiral would only get angrier for asking too much when she's a mere soldier who should not question orders.

But amidst the storm of questions, there is but one thing she knew for sure.

 _I can't do it…!_

Houshou screamed silently, holding back her cries.

She can't disobey her order, and at the same time, she couldn't obey it. She cared for both the admiral and her allies too much to even point the gun at anyone. Just thinking about the cold steel that is the gun in her hand weakens her legs, it feels like just holding it would bring her down to her knees. The last, heaviest question that was embedded into her mind was just one;

Who should she point the gun to?

Her sobs can be heard clearly this time. Her commander did nothing but just glare at her face as tears stream down her cheeks.

If she couldn't point the gun towards her commander nor her teammates,

"If…if that's your order…"

then instead,

she lifted the pistol that felt like it had the weight of the world with both hands,

and pressed the barrel of the gun in the area between her chin and her neck.

The warmth of her tears transmits to the back of her trembling hand as they drip down off her cheek. The parts of the gun rattled, even though barely audible.

The barrel felt so cold that it numbed Houshou's skin, and just thinking how the bullet will fly through her brain pumped more tears out of her eyes.

"If…If I were to hurt my friends…then I'd prefer to die before I stain my hands with their blood." Houshou said amidst her sobs, further burying the barrel into her skin.

"Oh." But the admiral didn't even bat an eye on Houshou's provocation, signaling that even Houshou's existence did not matter. "Is that your final choice then?" the admiral subtly sighed, shrugging.

Houshou was even more shaken seeing her commander's indifference, but she managed to express a nod.

"Hmph." Just that noise brought terror upon Houshou. She understood that the admiral could and have been acting cold-blooded when necessary…but she never thought that she could be the victim of it. "Then do it."

And thus, came the death sentence.

 _Ah…so this is how it ends…_ Houshou cried silently in her heart. _At least I will die protecting my friends…_ at the very last, she attempted to find solace in her death, seeking justification.

"Thank you…miss Admiral." Houshou sniffed. Her face was littered by messy tears, cold sweat and snot, expressing her deepest sadness, but it didn't matter. "At least I can spend my last moments with you…even though you…don't seem like you are yourself…"

But as if she didn't care, the admiral scoffed again.

 _Well then…here goes nothing…_

Houshou put some pressure on the trigger. It felt as heavy as pulling a full-size cannon shell with one arm, but the trigger continued moving.

Houshou inhales sharply through her gritted teeth, and put her entire strength on the trigger.

Her short life flashed before her eyes; she recalled the moment she met the admiral, the first time she was promoted to a secretary, the joyful faces of the destroyer children, her fellow fleetmates having a party in their dorm room, the latest aircraft carriers under her teaching…and as it continues on,

 _I wonder how they all are doing…?_

She began thinking about the others as time seemed to slow down.

 _I hope they all eat properly…_

 _I hope Kaga-san remembers not to hurt herself while shooting her arrows…_

 _Oh…right, the admiral too…I hope she won't board anyone else anymore…she'll hurt herself…_

 _Who will make her tea after I'm gone…?_

 _…I guess Kongou-san does it pretty often as well…so I can rest easy…_

"Miss admiral…please take care of everyone."

The trigger is pulled all the way back…but as time moves ever-so-slowly in a _Soumatou*_ , the mechanism felt delayed.

And then, the striking hammer hits.

 ** _Clink!_**

...

...

...

...

Did it jam?

 ** _Clink, clink!_**

 _What's happening?_

Houshou was confused and panicked for a moment, thinking the admiral might think she's delaying, but as if the admiral read her mind, she explained with a sigh.

"Insubordination, recklessness, disregard for personal safety." The admiral yelled, stepping forward while puffing her chest. "Not only once have you done this, but _seven times throughout the year_ , bearing in mind that today is still March, and you did it _twice_ …nah, _thrice_ just today."

Houshou's breath was stuck on her throat. The admiral's words started to sound like mocks which she deserved for not obeying orders.

"And in the end, you're even refusing my order to atone for your mistakes. Insubordination is all what you're doing." The admiral glared angrily, putting her hands into the pockets of her coat. She then slowly started to walk closer to the trembling mothership. Thinking that the commander will deliver the punishment with her own hands, Houshou became more panicked and inches further back. "And so, for that reason,"

Houshou closed her eyes, bracing herself for what's to come…but then,

"Will you marry me?"

"…Eh?"

The moment Houshou opened her eyes wide, the admiral had already kneeled directly in front of her, left hand behind her back, and her right holding a beautifully forged diamond ring.

"What…What's happening…?" Houshou stuttered. As if she lost control of her hand, the pistol on her hand violently dropped to her wooden flight deck with a rather loud sound.

"What's happening is that I'm asking if you would be my partner for my whole life." The admiral, void of the ominous aura that she was enveloped in earlier, smiled without care of the world.

"T-that's not my point…!" The redness of Houshou's face changed from that of sadness to a blush. "I…I'm asking what has been going on…!? Didn't you…I was about to…!"

"Idiot," the admiral let out a chuckle, "you didn't really think I would let you hurt anyone, did you? I wouldn't even let you hurt yourself."

"But…b-but the gun…!"

"Oh, this?" The admiral used her left hand that she stowed behind her back and picked up the Luger pistol that the mother ship dropped. "You see, Houshou-san; I won't be as reckless as you are at the very least."

Then, the admiral pointed the gun square on her temple, her index finger already in the trigger.

"NO! AYUMI-SAN!"

But as soon as that happen, Houshou immediately leaped forward, crashing onto the admiral and knocking her back. Houshou managed to grab onto the admiral's torso in the meantime, but her hands are still free. Houshou struggled, but it doesn't seem to matter, as the admiral already pulled the trigger.

But,

 _Clink!_

"See? I made sure the gun is not loaded."

Houshou's teary face looked up, where the admiral points.

The gun's muzzle was still glued to her temple, but every time the trigger was pulled, a light _clink_ is all that could be heard.

And then,

 ** _WHAM!_**

The admiral's face underwent a massive facial reconstruction via the mother ship's hand.

"YOU ARE AN IDIOT AND A FOOL!" Houshou yelled with fury. Her eyes were closed tight that it squeezed out what's left of the liquid in her tear ducts. "I HATE YOU! I ABSOLUTELY HATE YOU…SO, SO MUCH!"

Another facial reconstruction, this time, it's the other side of the face.

"Hahaha, I guess that's a no?" the admiral smiled wryly with both sides of her cheeks glowing red.

"SEE, THIS IS WHY YOU'RE A FOOL!" Houshou smashed her commander again. "I NEVER SAID NO, DIDN'T I?!"

"…I thought you made it pretty clear already?"

"T-THAT'S…because…" Houshou stopped briefly. She was angry, obviously, but what's not so obvious is her reason to be angry. "You always say how we need to take care of ourselves while you keep endangering yourself like this…how hypocritical can you be!?"

She was not angry because she was prank-ordered to kill her friends, but rather because of the overflowing worry that her commander pointed the gun to her own head.

"But I do properly take care of myself, right? I told you the gun is empty, and I know the gun is empty." The admiral fell backwards after yet another Houshou Smash while the said mother ship is still riding her by the waist, but after a cough, he admiral continued with a different subject—her main subject. "So uh…do you choose to accept…? It's embarrassing to keep waiting like this." The admiral uttered, scratching her cheeks while her cheeks were still red, this time with a mix of a blush and a bruise.

"Den…den what was dat for?!" Houshou cried again, this time she tried wiping the mix of tears, sweat and snot off her face. As she stopped shouting, her nose got clogged by the overwhelming amount of nasal fluid that finally left her talking in a lisp. "Wy did yu tell mi du gill dem!? (Why did you tell me to kill them!?)"

"It's…a test," said the admiral, "And it turned out that you're exactly the one person I love the most. That's why I asked if I can marry you."

Houshou's voice was stuck in her throat facing such blatant confession from her commander. Her stirring emotion was overwhelming, she wasn't sure if she should be embarrassed, overjoyed, or upset at her commander's attitude. All of those feelings were present indeed, but…what should she do?

"Id de virzt blace…why be? (In the first place, why me?)" Sobbed Houshou trying to clear her nostrils.

"Well first, I've known you for a long time, and I've seen you accomplish many great things…things that neither me nor other ladies can even think of solving. You've been a great moral support, fantastic secretary, and most of all, and I know this is mainly a joke, but I think you are a terrific mother for the whole navy." The commander said with a smile. "I knew that you won't even lift a finger up against your companion, so I can confidently give you the pistol as well as the order to assassinate your fleetmates."

"But the problem was…you don't care about yourself." Admiral Ayumi stopped, her face twists into a serious expression. "I know that there was a 10% chance that you will turn the gun against me, and a 90% chance of turning the gun against your own head, that was why I didn't load the gun."

"It's very much concerning that you would put the others before you to the point of recklessness, but you know what I thought?" the commander suddenly asked, but as Houshou wasn't expecting it at all, she could only let out a strange noise. "I thought _hey, maybe if I stay by her side, I can help protect her from her recklessness_."

Houshou sat quietly on her admiral's lap, not thinking that she might be disrespectful. She was too busy concentrating on holding back her cries and listening to the sweet words of her commander to care.

"In the end…I know that you don't mind to be called a mother, and even though you're not, you'd still do things that mothers will do anyways." Houshou nodded, thinking _the admiral knew me too well_ , "That's…why I fell in love with you so…"

The commander seemed hesitant. She was nervous since the beginning, but she managed to get through it through sheer determination, but it has been a while after it settled down, which caused the admiral to be embarrassed about what she said and what she's about to say.

"So if you're going to be the mother, would you accept me to be the father?"

Once again, the admiral confessed; this time, with both eyes tightly closed and her face burning red.

…silence.

"A-ah, of course if you don't want to, I can just…you know…throw this away somewhere…you know. I don't want to force you on anything…" The admiral's composure broke on the awkward silence, but her sentence only further upsets the mother ship. "I…I know we're both girls and you might be…you know, reluctant to be married to someone of the same sex, so I don't blame you…"

"You really are an idiot, miss admiral." Houshou said after a sigh and a sob. Her cries died down, and she could almost breathe normally, but she couldn't help but to keep sniffing to prevent the liquid in her nostrils to flow too rapidly. "First of all, you underestimate the number of people who would dive down beneath the ocean just to receive that little thing from you."

"S…sorry…"

"And secondly," Houshou exclaimed, almost yelling this time, and delivering yet another Houshou Smash "…THERE'S NO BLOODY WAY I COULD REFUSE!"

But this time, she proceeded with a rather slow, loving hug.

"Of course…Of course I do…" Houshou cried into the admiral's chest, circling her arm around her commander's torso and squeezing her tight.

"I…I see…" This time, it was the commander who was confused on what to feel. Embarrassment, joy, but at the same time, suffocation.

The mother ship hugged her commander tightly as if she was about to lose her tomorrow. Firstly, it was out of anger and worry due to how she aimed the gun towards her head, giving off an illusion of what Houshou will witness in the future in the demise of their navy. Secondly, it was because of pure joy of being chosen.

"Out of hundreds of women in our naval base…you picked me…" Houshou sobbed, "There are better girls in our home…but you still picked me…"

"What, you have a problem with my judgment?"

"Of course not!" Houshou yelled in response, tightening her hug even further. "I'm just…I'm just so happy that can't believe it…"

"Well…" the commander couldn't say anything, but she chose to push the mother ship away briefly, because there is something that she couldn't do otherwise.

"…?" Houshou was obviously confused and wondered why she was pushed away, but mostly she was embarrassed that her snot, tears and sweat-littered face is on full display in front of the person she loves.

"So miss Houshou, will you accept me, Ashikaga Ayumi, as your partner for the rest of your life?"

Once again, the admiral picked the ring box and presented it towards the light carrier woman.

It's the third time the commander had confessed her love and proposed for marriage, but it doesn't decrease the value of happiness it brought to Houshou. Just when she thought she'd stop crying after the rollercoaster of emotion her commander had put her through, Houshou still tears up.

And with a trembling voice, Houshou voiced her consent.

"…Yes…Yes I do…"

The exchange slowly closed as the metal object firmly slid onto the Houshou's ring finger.

* * *

* _Soumatou: the moment when your life flashes before your eyes when one is about to die._


	16. Epilogue: The End of the Beginning

"I thought we've shut down the communication system…"

Once the two newlyweds returned to the office, the admiral muttered in some sort of despaired voice. Meanwhile, her new wife who stood next to her covered her entire blushing face with both of her hands.

The reason was quite simple.

The entirety of the five fleets was there.

And it was not even just figuratively. All 29 members from the Hammerhead fleet, Tiger fleet, Bramble fleet, Thresher fleet and the Mako fleet was jam-packed into the admiral's office; them, as well as the command secretary Ooyodo and arsenal manager Akashi. They all had their hands folded while glaring at the two newlyweds saltily.

" **Miss admiral**?"

The first one of the group that spoke up was Ise. She spoke slowly, loudly, yet seemingly sarcastically.

"…Yes."

But like a dam that's burst open, the rest of the members, mainly the childish ones like Iyo and Fubuki, jumped and bellowed.

"IT'S NOT FAAAAAIIIRRR!"

"Damn it~, I was hoping that I can have the thing that I made, but the admiral chose to give it to someone else…" Akashi mumbled to herself while biting her nail, glaring jealously to Houshou, specifically to her ring finger, now beautifully decorated by her hand-crafted ring.

"H-hmm…I don't really care on who she's marrying as long as it's not Fusou-nee-sama but…I'm somewhat irritated…" Yamashiro turned away pretending to be disinterested with the ordeal while clearly looking disturbed.

"Well well, don't say that, Yamashiro. Even I want to be married to the admiral as well." Meanwhile, her sister Fusou who's standing next to her smiled while putting her hand on her little sister's head. "And I believe you wished for it too."

"W-what…I wouldn't want to…well, except if nee-sama is married to her then I guess there's no other choice to protect nee-sama from…"

"Oh come on, Yamashiro." In the end, Fusou could only laugh at her little sister's stubbornness.

But the admiral still demanded answer.

"H…how did you guys even know…?" The admiral groaned, "I made sure to shut off all communications and went as far away from the base as possible…"

But the shipgirls—all 31 of them—turned their faces away. As suspicious as they looked, they all were glancing at three separate directions; towards the admiral, towards nowhere at all, or towards a certain destroyer.

"…Shigure?" The admiral can be dense, but she was not dumb nor foolish. She collected all the ship's collective gaze and traced them towards the second ship of the Shiratsuyu-class, who suspiciously did not alternate her gaze, and instead just blankly stared at the ceiling while pursing her lips.

"I have no idea what an eavesdropper tool is, and Yuubari and Akashi definitely did not help make it for me to put it in the folds of your collar." On the other hand, Shigure was proficient in concealing her presence, and not her lies. Hearing her suspicious report, the admiral immediately checked her collar in a panic, and noticed she found at least three dice-sized chips embedded in the cloths on her collar.

Meanwhile, the 31 ships groaned in clear disappointment, like a bunch of men grieving after the football team that they have been supporting for years was lost in the World Cup.

Yes—even the ships that proudly confess they're not interested like Hyuuga and Yamashiro also groaned unconsciously.

Somehow there's still a glint of hope in their eyes, but…

"I'll go through every one of my shirts and my overcoats later and take them all off." The commander said in irritation, effectively flinging the entire navy in despair, for listening to their commander's voice is one of the girls' favorite pastime.

"A-anyways, Admiral! Stop changing the subject, why didn't you tell any of us about your marriage plan?" Ooyodo snapped back and yelled while adjusting her glasses that are foggy from her blushing.

Just as Ooyodo shouted, the groans stopped. They all focused back on the issue at hand.

"She's right, miss admiral…why didn't you tell us?" Fusou clenched her hand in front of her chest and asked.

"Well…of course I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise by telling anyone," the admiral asserted, prompting a concerned yell from the girls. However, the admiral understand that the girls deserved the naked truth about her feelings;

"I've set my eyes on Houshou-san since long ago. I too am battling some sort of cognitive dissonance knowing her and I are different kinds, while…well, practically the same gender…" the admiral grumbled. "I'm sorry if I offend anyone by not telling about this, but I feel that I have to confront my feeling and just…confess it to the person I love by myself, otherwise it's…you know, there's no meaning for it." The admiral scratched her head.

The people in the room can only listen silently.

Some might want to complain, some might feel that it's unfair, some might say that the admiral could at least tell them about it beforehand…

Those feelings…those complains and irritation they felt…they're all based on jealousy.

But it's all too late; the ring is already slid onto Houshou's left ring finger. The vow must have been said, and once the admiral's set her mind of something, the hope of changing it is nigh impossible.

Besides,

"Haa…" someone from the 31 ships sighed. No one knew specifically who, but it was Hyuuga who spoke up afterwards, calling for the other person concerned "Houshou-san, do you mind?"

"Eh…? No, not at all. Please go ahead…" Houshou was in a bit of a panic thinking the fleets might be angry at her. That is to be perfectly normal though; for Houshou who cares a lot about the navy like it's her whole family, she was afraid that this turning point of her life might ruin the cohesiveness of the navy.

But that wasn't the case.

"Congratulations, Houshou-san."

The girls are happy for the mother ship.

"Eh?"

Toward Hyuuga's celebratory words, Houshou was shocked.

"'grats mom for capturing our stoic commander's heart." The next in line was Kiso, who put her arms behind her back, grinning ear to ear.

One by one, the room's atmosphere brightens up with congratulations from the shipgirls. Some like Iroha complained by saying "Houshou-san beat me to it~!" but still, they were all happy for their "mother" from the bottom of their hearts.

" _Herzlichen Glückwunsch, Mutter_!" The small Yuu followed right after, still mentioning the word for _mother_ in her German.

" _Поздравляем, мама_. I guess the chance isn't mine." The Russian battleship also congratulated her, speaking the Russian sentence along with the half-Japanese half-Russian destroyer. "For now", lastly she supplemented albeit almost inaudible.

"Well I kinda guessed it though, right, Hitomi?" Iyo poked her sister with her elbow.

"Y-yes," Hitomi gingerly responded, "I mean, Admiral only used honorifics to Houshou-san, so I guess it's pretty obvious…"

"Heee, you guys observed her pretty well…I didn't even realize." Haguro who overheard the conversation joined in with her eyes widened upon realizing.

"Really, Haguro. That much should be obvious!" Maya responded to her, laughing with a snicker.

"Good job, Mom! Tell me how to specifically capture her heart next time!" Souryuu approached the mothership and pat her in the back gently.

But Houshou surprisingly showed a very childish reaction to that.

"E-even so, I won't hand over miss Admiral!" Her face was serious and she gripped the hem of her outfit tightly as she shouted.

"Whoa…" her behavior obviously prompted a shocked response from the rest of the fleets, to the point that everyone immediately quiets down without cue.

Meanwhile, the admiral blushed in the corner of the room.

"A-awawawa…!" with the sudden change of atmosphere, Houshou was also shocked, thinking she might have said something wrong…but she felt that she did not. "I-I'm serious…! Even I want to be selfish from time to time, you know!"

So instead, Houshou kept pressing on her selfish desire. True, it might invoke hostility, but somehow Houshou trusted that her fleetmates shouldn't be _that_ angry.

"Hoho~ being too selfish might lead your beloved husband astray, miss Houshou~" Taigei appeared from her side with a fake smile. From somewhere, the admiral muttered " _I guess I want to be called the wife too sometimes..._ "

It seems like Houshou dug her own grave.

Instead of invoking hostility, the rest of the girls were rather…fired up.

"It's on now! The admiral can have as much wives as possible, so don't think that we're backing up!"

It was so bad that the normally shy Ushio even went as far as declaring such bold statement.

Clearly, it attracts the agreement of the whole five fleets given how they're all smirking and agreeing to what the destroyer said

"W-wait…! I can't possibly have multiple partners…!" of course, the admiral won't stay silent at what Ushio said. It's not like she hated the shipgirls, but for her, the idea of polygamy never even crossed her mind.

"Sure, polygamy isn't allowed by law, but that's for marriage amongst humans, right?" Furutaka echoed from somewhere. "We're shipgirls! We're not bound by human laws, so we can do whatever we want!"

Furutaka's flaming words evoked a spirited yell from the girls.

"B-but what about my—,"

"Hey, Akashi, you can ask for more marriage permits, right?" Shouhou cuts into the admiral's concern like hot knife went through butter.

"Ou! There's no limit to it too, just 700 DMM points for each, and I can forge more rings if needed!"

""""Then get at least 31 of them!""""

"Alright, leave it to me! I'll pay them with the admiral's pocket money!"

"NOOOO! MY SALARYYYYY!"

With the request of the Isokaze sisters as well as Mogami and Kako, Akashi pounded her chest proudly. _"As expected of Akashi!"_ Ashigara yelled from somewhere.

The situation had grown out of the admiral's control; all she could do now is just…watch as the chaos unfolds.

"What idiocy…" Hyuuga muttered as she walked with an unconcerned, bold stride towards…Akashi. "Get one for me too." She whispered, prompting a hearty laugh from the repair ship, followed by a loud "thank you, come again!"

"A set for me and Fusou-nee-sama!" Yamashiro also yelled. The area around Akashi now felt like a crowded bar.

"Anyways!" Ooyodo bellowed, calming down the ruckus. The room was already cramped as it was crammed by 31 ships at once (plus 2 which is the admiral and Houshou), but with the ruckus, it felt even more cramped. "So…there you have it, Miss admiral and Houshou-san, and…"

This time, all 31 ships yelled at once.

" ** _MISS ADMIRAL, PLEASE TAKE CARE OF US,_** "

That was all but just the first message they want to convey.

The second was,

" ** _HOUSHOU-SAN, WE LOOK FORWARD FOR A CLEAN COMPETITION,_** "

"No hitting below the belt or straight in the face," someone said as a joke.

And last but not least,

" ** _WE WON'T LOSE!_** "

* * *

Several days later,

"Miss admiral, here's your tea."

On a sunny Sunday afternoon, the admiral put down the papers she just checked and turned her face towards the person who just put down a cup of green tea on her desk.

"Oh, thanks Houshou-san." the admiral, feeling slightly dizzy after binge-reading the combat reports, immediately picked up the tea offered by her wife and took a sip.

"Good work today, Miss Admiral. What's your plan next?" Still holding the tray, Houshou asked...but the admiral only stared back at her, prompting a hesitant "...what is it?" from Houshou.

"...come on, Houshou-san, you aren't going to say the usual?"

"W...what usual thing?"

She was referring to how Houshou always offer her three things when she's tired;

A bath, food, or...something suggestive.

But after her marriage, Houshou turned to be embarrassed to do that again.

"You know, the usual three things, how about you say that again?" This time, it's the admiral's turn to smile seductively. She supported her cheek with her hand and peered at her new wife from the corner of her eyes while slowly inching closer with her revolving chair.

"M-miss admiral, it's..."

"It's what, Houshou-san?" The admiral stood up and circled her arm around Houshou's waist, drawing the embarrassed mothership closer to her. "Besides, I'm your wife/husband, so you should be calling me by my name, right?"

"A-a-a..." With her face steaming, Houshou stuttered uncontrollably, but alas, "Admiral..." she couldn't do it.

"Come on~ just a bit more~" The admiral became more daring as time passes; she grabbed her wife's chin and pulled it near to her face.

"A-Ayumi-sannnn...!"

"Theeere you go, good job~"

Finally with a face red as a ripe tomato and eyes shut as tight as she gripped the admiral's coat, the name slurred its way out of her mouth.

But then,

"...what's this?"

A mail.

"...it just appeared out of nowhere."

"I think it just flied in from the window...but I didn't know how it could be possible..."

A blue envelope was sitting on the desk while clearly it wasn't there just seconds ago. Curious, the admiral decided to open it with a paper knife her wife passed to her.

"Let's see, what does it say...?"

 _[Author's note:_

 _For everyone that got this far, thank you for reading Seas of Fortune. It took a while, but I hope you enjoyed it. I might make other works that might be related with this one, especially surrounding Ashikaga's other jobs in Gryfon Kryuger and possibly another...more international naval base (lol), I've been going around this type of collection-based_ _games so I have quite some ideas. I'll probably try to focus on the combat a bit more, especially when it's related to Girls' Frontline, if I'm talking about that franchise, the battles take place in a smaller scale so it's easier to think about._

 _Once again, thank you for reading._

 _\- Asther_

 _P.S. Sorry to interrupt, Ashikaga]_

"DAMN YOUUUUU!"

And thus with a diss, the story comes to a close.


End file.
